No Guarantees
by Dannemund
Summary: Courier McCrae can barely keep herself alive―and her reluctance to drag a certain sniper to Fortification Hill isn't helping. If she can survive herself, she can survive anything. (Reimagined story of New Vegas) F!Courier/Boone, rated M for torture, sexual assault and occasional cursing.
1. McCrae

Note: I'm reviving this stupid thing because I know I can make it work. ...Also she won't leave me alone. Go away, McCrae! Reimagined tale of Courier 6/Boone

* * *

McCrae still had problems remembering things―anything, really. The shot that buried her was responsible for that, and she wasn't sure what to make of the current situation. Part of her wanted revenge, but other parts were crying out that she should just get the hell out of the desert. Since she couldn't remember much about herself or how she would have acted in this sort of situation, she pressed onward.

It took a good deal of booze for her to get up her gumption and track down the asshole that shot her. But that was okay. She found out she was real bad at holding her liquor, which was something she hadn't known.

Goodsprings gave way to Primm, Primm stepped to the Mojave Outpost, and eventually she reached Nipton. The town had been destroyed. Some of it was still on fire. Caesar's Legion flags hung in prominent places. She covered her mouth with a handkerchief and moved onto what appeared to be the main street of the town.

Crosses, and men crucified upon them lined the street, and ahead of her was a cavalcade of Legion soldiers, who promptly lined themselves up in a dramatic fashion. The one in the center, who appeared to be the leader, moved forward from the rest of them.

She adjusted the strap on her shoulder, shifting her haversack from one shoulder to the other. She stepped forward to match him.

"Greetings, Profligate."

"Who are you?" she asked, her eyes narrowing. She didn't remove the handkerchief from her mouth.

"I am Vulpes Inculta, of Caesar's Legion. I serve my master as the greatest of his Frumentarii."

She looked around at the carnage. "What exactly happened here?"

"Nipton was a wicked place, debased and corrupt. It served all comers, so long as they paid. Profligate troops, Powder Gangers, men of the Legion such as myself―the people here didn't care. It was a town of whores." His expression was indecipherable, but she gathered he was proud of the testament to the power of the Legion.

She wanted to spit in his face for reveling in this. "Alright, so what do you want with me?"

He grinned, his mouth curving up into his face viciously. "Tell everyone you meet of what you saw here. The Legion can handle the rest."

She glanced at the mongrels, patiently waiting by their masters' sides. Saliva dripped from their jaws, and dried blood matted their fur. A shiver went down her back, even in the heat. "I'll do as you say."

Why was she so damn scared of dogs? It wasn't like she'd never had to kill mongrels running about the wastes―or maybe that was why. She sighed to herself, frustration.

The Legion left, and she watched them go, walking calmly off into the desert. It wasn't until they were out of sight that she even moved, turning to look up at the men on the crucifixes. She sighed, then continued on her way, eastward.

* * *

She passed by Searchlight, holding the handkerchief as close to her nose and mouth as possible. The place stunk badly of decaying flesh and fire. A brown fog hung in the air. She kept going. Much further up the road, she spotted an enormous statue of a green creature. She checked her Pip-Boy. Novac. That would be the "dinosaur" she'd heard about.

"I need to work on my aim," she muttered to herself. _Very low on ammo now._

McCrae got a room at the motel and walked into the room, flopping onto the bed. It was just the right thing for a long, tiring day. She slept.

In the morning, she located Vargas and spoke with him about the man who had shot her, but he refused to give it up until she helped him with the ghoul issue the town has been having. She declined.

 _I ain't about to chase feral ghouls down rickety hallways in an old rocket testing site,_ she told herself. _Not even if I_ am _brain-damaged._

She did make an important choice, though―with her ammo dwindling, her shitty aim, and that facial nerve that kept going off like her skin wanted to jump off of her skull, she needed help, and she had enlisted a local sniper for that purpose. He wanted to kill Legion. Well, that was alright.

She surveyed him, in the motel. He wasn't much to look at. The beret he wore made him look very smart, though. Reddish-blond hair―not much of it, either; puddle-colored eyes; flat nose, likely broken more than once; a heavy, ugly jaw.

But damn, the man could shoot!

It didn't help either one of them that she felt sorry for him. That bill of sale... She shuddered.

She leaned on the tail of the dinosaur, outside, looking up at the cloudless sky. She _could_ do this. She would go to New Vegas and find that bastard that shot her, find out why he'd shot her, get back this platinum chip that she'd been delivering. Maybe then her head would clear of this uncertainty she was feeling, the helplessness that came from knowing she'd died.

And that weird robot that was following her... She shot a look at the entrance to the motel. Victor stood there, facing away. It made her nervous to know that he was following her with a clear intent to escort her to New Vegas.

She stubbed out her cigarette and looked up at the dinosaur. In the morning, they would head to New Vegas. Until then... might as well get some sleep.

* * *

Weird things happened to her, walking along the highway to New Vegas. People looked at her with more respect, having a First Recon soldier trailing after her. She would have been amused, if she hadn't had so much on her mind. ...At least, so much to try to remember. She growled to herself.

Camping wasn't pleasant in the desert. Half the time, you woke up freezing, the other half being assaulted by critters. Boone wasn't much of a talker, and she wasn't inclined to start a conversation either. The sound of the wind scraping the sand was the only comfort she had.

The didn't enter Freeside right away. A passing trader had informed her of the credit check one had to pass to get onto the Strip. Even if that creepy robot and his employer were waiting, she still had to gather 2000 caps to even get there.

They went around to Camp McCarran and asked if there was any work available. Major Dhatri offered up some bounty on the heads of a few Fiends. Apparently, there were drug-addled psychopaths roaming the wilds of Vegas. McCrae just shook her head and took the job.

More so, she wanted to help another woman at the base, who had been violently assaulted by one of the Fiends. Corporal Betsy seemed like she had all her ducks in a row, at first. She flirted mercilessly with McCrae. But after hearing the story of what had happened to her, McCrae was more than willing to put a bullet in the head of that bastard.

She and Boone went round and took out Cook-Cook without much issue, sniping from a distance. McCrae was not good at shooting. She felt embarrassed by Boone's obvious superiority, but reminded herself that he had been in the military. She was fairly sure she'd never been good at shooting, though she couldn't remember. It certainly seemed true enough.

That evening, she discussed with Boone her plans on the Strip. Until that point, she hadn't bothered him with information about her job or what she'd planned once they got to Vegas. He mentioned offhand about the rules of the casinos, and how weapons were not permitted inside them.

She swore. "What the hell, man!" Blowing smoke through her nose, she tossed her cigarette into the campfire. "He's in there, hiding like some little pig, and I am the big bad wolf." She looked up at the El Rey Motel, then up past the wall at the buildings of New Vegas, lit up like nothing else in the world.

Boone walked off, probably to use a bush or something. She pulled her guns out and examined them, then began systematically dismantling them. But the time he returned, she was muttering a litany of curses under her breath that would make a Fiend blush.

He watched in silence, while she took weapon components and assembled them into a new gun. A firing pin here, mainspring there, she pieced it together carefully and methodically. She pinched herself with the firing pin, and swore. Finally, she held it and aimed down the sights at a yucca in the distance.

"Are you ex-military?" he asked, quietly. She jerked in surprise, dry firing the weapon unintentionally.

Sheepishly, she shook her head. "Don't know." A hand brushed her hair back from the side of her head, revealing the bullet wound that went up her cheek into the side of her head. She examined the pistol a bit more, then put it away.

"Got shot in the head," she said, unnecessarily. "I can't remember much. I don't know how I got caught, or what happened, or even who it was that shot me. I've been told he was wearing a checkered suit."

A cold wind blew through the parking lot. She shivered, and for a moment, she wished she was inside the motel, if it was even inhabitable. But the very thought made her nervous, being stuck inside some room, potentially backing herself into a corner. She wasn't good enough to shoot her way out of that scenario. She lit another cigarette nervously.

The moon began to rise. "I'll sleep first," Boone said.

She nodded, and curled up her knees on a rock next to the campfire, bouncing thoughts colliding in her head. _If_ she could get onto the Strip―the caps weren't as forthcoming as she had hoped―and _if_ she could find the man in the checkered suit, what then? Other than trying to convince him to give her the reason why he'd shot her.

Get him to tell her the names of the Great Khans who had helped him? She wasn't running him down just to take revenge. And beyond that, the Great Khans had an unfavorable reputation for brevity in business deals. She didn't need any more holes in her head.

She would certainly kill the man in the checkered suit. Maybe screw with him a little first. But he would definitely be dead when she was done.

After, that robot, Victor... He might have information for her, or could get her help with the delivery she was supposed to make. She'd never had a problem with deliveries before. The statement in the contracts were frightening enough to keep anyone on the beaten track.

She chain-smoked cigarettes for a few hours, watching the distance and thinking furiously. Then, all of a sudden, it was daylight. She panicked, because that meant she must have fallen asleep and _oh, for fuck's sake_ ―

Boone was sitting up, watching out for them, when she bolted upright and went for her gun.

"Everything's secure," was all he said, tossing a can of beans at her feet.

It was ten minutes before she could calm down long enough to eat. What if kept running through her head.

"Is that a habit of yours?" he asked.

"What?" She was still shaky, and dropped her spoon. "No. Not at all. Just―a lot on my mind."

After eating, she scrolled through her Pip-Boy and looked at the area surrounding them for money-making ideas. Quite obviously she would salvage what she could to sell, but that only went so far. She didn't mind taking jobs from the NCR―having Boone with her made that much easier, since everyone automatically assumed she was "one of them". There wasn't much money in hunting ants and scorpions, and she'd heard some rumors of Deathclaws north of Goodsprings, so she wasn't in a hurry to try to get back there.

After a few minutes thought and trying to keep 200-year-old beans in her stomach, she shut down the Pip-Boy. "Let's go hunt Fiends," she said, with a sigh. "Maybe we'll break even. Besides, there's supposed to be a Vault in there somewhere. I'll bet it has a lot of good stuff."

Later, she would wish she wasn't so bold.


	2. Turn On The Brahmin

Note: Warning, sexual assault here. Damn Fiends.

* * *

It was becoming a regular occurrence for her to panic upon waking. She didn't like that, but in this case, it was warranted.

When she opened her eyes, there was a ghoul in front of her face, people standing behind him, and the bars of a jail cell in her periphery. She struck out with one hand and shoved herself backwards with the other.

A sharp pain lanced through her head, then her hand―even ghouls still have bones―and her shoulder and neck were on fire. She flinched in pain and cradled her right side.

"What the _fuck_!" the ghoul cried, grabbing his nose and jerking back.

She took in that everyone inside the bars, including herself, had been stripped of equipment and clothing. She pushed herself up against the bars, getting herself ready for any attack. If any fighting needed to be done, she would need her legs free.

Two arms reached into the cell from behind her, and grabbed her. "Hah!" a rude male voice came from behind her, "I'll hold her, mush-face! You punch!"

The ghoul glared at whomever was holding her, and turned away from them. "Ahh, no fun," the man said, and let her go. She immediately moved away from the bars, as close to the others as she could get without actually being too near them.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled at the ghoul.

"Whatever," he grumbled back.

She realized she must have been caught by the Fiends. Six people wearing tribal armor and horned helmets were guarding the cell, with herself; a dead man; the ghoul and another man who were alive; and a woman inside. Then she saw that Boone was not there. She felt a moment of fear. Was he dead?

Her head throbbed. She couldn't remember anything other than approaching the South Vegas Ruins. _Oh, fuck that,_ she thought. Alone, no memory, frightened again. _My luck._

"Hey, pretty lady," one of the guard called out. "Your head hurting? I got something that'll make it _all_ better." He laughed brazenly.

She shuddered involuntarily, to the delight of the other guards. They all started in on her then, offering everything from a hit of Jet to some allusion to sex involving Deathclaws and saddles. She looked down at her feet, her face flushed.

"Just ignore them," the non-ghoul man in the cell said, whispering as he moved closer to her.

"I'm trying," she whispered back. "How long have I been in here?"

"Not long," he answered. "Maybe an hour, tops."

She examined her hand, noting that she still had her Pip-Boy on her arm. _Guess they couldn't figure out how to get it off_ , she thought. It listed her injuries as a crippled arm, minor damage to her head, and some bruising on the ribs. Touching her neck, she felt a scrape and pulled away from dried blood. Nothing too serious.

She looked around at the room she was in. The cell was in the middle of the room, but it appeared to be the jail of a Vault, with security lockers and a few bench seats set against the walls. Her Pip-Boy listed her location as Vault 3. She wondered why is was in such good condition; most Vaults were rusted out, irradiated, or otherwise destroyed on the inside.

Surprise, then, that she could recall another Vault, not in the Mojave. It hadn't been that long ago that she had been there. She wondered where, though. Couldn't remember that part.

 _I suppose I should be grateful that my memories are returning,_ she told herself. _Given the current situation, I feel like it's rather a moot point._

A hour passed as she fretted over what would happen here, where the hell Boone was, and how long she would be stuck. She'd attempted the lock already, but it was too complex and tricky for her bobby pins. And the guards had watched her in amusement, so they were aware of her attempts.

 _If Boone_ is _dead,_ she thought, _I hope he didn't go down easy._ She watched one of the guards scratch his ass and sniff his finger. _Nah. He's definitely alive._

In time, one of the guards left and another took her place. With the replacement came another Fiend who began arguing with one of the others. There was a hushed argument, fingers pointing, and a punch was thrown. The guard came to the cell and unlocked it, and she found out why it took six people to guard the cell.

Two went to the cell door, two remained on watch. The other two rushed into the cell, grabbed her by both arms, and dragged her kicking and screaming out of the cell. They shut the door immediately once she was out. She fought, but was awarded with a punch to the face for her efforts. The pain was so bad she nearly fainted, and she allowed them to drag her away as dead weight.

McCrae was brought before a heavy door, darkened by the interior of the vault. She heard the scrape of the locking mechanisms as it opened, shrill and grating. Then she was tossed inside.

She heard low growling. She looked to the corners of the room but could only see crates piled up on each other. She moved forward carefully, coming face to face with smoeone whom she presumed was the leader of the Fiends. He was sitting on what appeared to be a throne. _How... appropriate_ , she thought. Two dogs, barely domesticated, were the source of the growling. She moved nervously to the throne.

"My people tell me that you were killing all the Fiends you saw," the leader of the Fiends said. He looked bored, sitting with his chin in his hand. His helmet was the most impressive one she'd seen so far, decked out with bighorner horns. She eyed the dogs, some irrational paranoia setting into her bones.

"Since you ain't NCR, and you don't stink like a Khan, I wonder why that is."

She gulped a breath, and then exhaled noisily. _Play along._ "I need the money," she said, rubbing her knuckles on her injured hand.

His eyes narrowed at her. "For what?"

Darting her eyes back and forth from the dogs, who were steadily creeping up beside her almost to the point of touching her, she started shivering. "Look, there's only one reason someone would be around here," she snapped, rudely.

A laugh, then. "Chems for sex," he said, "your choice. Then you get the fuck out of my territory, or we kill you." He gave her an appraising look, running his finger along his jaw. "It's been a while since we've had fresh meat 'round this place. Could use a turn on the brahmin."

She did some quick thinking. Firstly, she knew that her quickest way out of this shitstorm was to give him what he wanted. Secondly, she hadn't had her own "turn on the brahmin" in a while, either. _You used to enjoy it quite a bit._ It surprised her, her memories coming back in such a hostile situation.

"Alright," she said.

He grinned, revealing some terrible teeth. "Come on, then," he said, and led her away from the dogs. She relaxed a little. _What is with me?_ she wondered. _I don't know that I've ever been scared of dogs before. Even the Legion mongrels in Nipton got to me._

He shoved her into a room further into the bowels of the Vault. It was full of trash, empty inhalers, and needles. At least there was a bed. She'd expected a cardboard mat on the floor. He slammed the door behind them and ripped her shirt right off her from behind. "Let's see what we got," he said, smirking.

She turned, willing herself not to cover her chest. _Work with it,_ she thought. _There hasn't been a man yet, you couldn't handle._

"Bitch, you're practically pristine," he said, twisting a nipple painfully, then shoving her down onto the bed, he was on top of her. Rough hands moved over her breasts, pinching, squeezing, twisting. She cried out in pain. He forced his mouth onto hers and stabbed his tongue into her.

One hand moved to her underwear, jerking them downward. She shimmied out of them, if only to help this whole thing be over with quicker. He jammed two fingers into her mound and rubbed her _hard_. She groaned in pain. It only encouraged him.

Her hands were still free, and she felt awkward, couldn't let him force it on her. Trying to take control, she ran a hand down his chest and tweaked a nipple.

He jerked upright and slapped her straight across the face. She reeled in pain, grabbing her head. With a laugh, he spread her legs and entered her. She gasped, and put her hands out to him, trying not to fight it. _Make it out alive._

He grunted with effort, pushing in and out. She wanted to close her eyes, but she was afraid that he would hit her again and she wouldn't see it coming. He moved his mouth back to hers, and pushed into her, hard.

This went on a lot longer than she would have expected, with how frantic his thrusts were. After a few minutes, he backed off and looked at her with a weird expression.

 _Oh. OH! He's expecting me to enjoy this!_ Her eyes widened in shock.

His hand came around then, went to her throat. She blocked it and the fight began.

He was on top of her, heavy and unyielding, still inside her and trying to hold her down with his weight. His free hand was pulled back for another hit. She kicked him in the back, knocking him forward into her face as she moved up to meet it, cracking skulls as strong as she could manage. He grunted and fell forward across her chest, but recovered quickly, sinking his mangled teeth into her neck. She screamed in pain, and let go of his hands.

He got back up, roaring with laughter, and wrapped his hands around her throat, squeezing. She moved hers to his throat, too, but her hands were slick with her own blood and stiff from pain. He began to pump into her again, grunting and exhaling in puffs.

The world went white, blurry, and she felt like she was about to vomit from the pain. Then she saw a way out, and it sickened her, but it had to be done. She vocalized an orgasm, struggling to get the sounds through her throttled throat. She relaxed and let her hands trail blood down his chest, moaning.

He loosened his grip and moved faster, then let out a guttural sigh and slumped on top of her once more.

She lay there, recovering. She could feel him inside her, twitching, and hot tears fell down her cheek onto her bleeding neck. She was so angry at herself. Why would she ever think this was preferable to being killed?

Some disconnected thought murmured, _I wonder how Betsy felt when Cook-Cook raped her._

And she snapped. She grabbed up his helmet and slammed him in the face with it until one of the horns lodged into his eye socket. She shoved him to the ground then, and picked up his chainsaw.

The people in the cell were probably horrified when she sprang into the room, wielding the chainsaw, naked and bleeding profusely. She cut down every Fiend she saw, hacking limbs and spattering herself with more blood. When the chainsaw broke, she grabbed a pool cue and thrashed the remaining Fiends with it until it broke in her hands on the last terror-stricken enemy.

She left it stuck into the gaping mouth of the nearest Fiend. Her head was fuzzy, but she unlocked the cell and released the prisoners, then searched through the lockers nearby for her things. All her chems and caps were gone, and her hood smelled like someone had peed in it. She tossed it into her pack, dressed in her leather, and headed out of the Vault.

Outside, she stopped and looked around, her eyesight not entirely clear. Picking a direction, she started walking, wincing at the pain that was now creeping back into her neck and head. She was still bleeding, and it didn't appear to be stopping.

She rounded a corner in the courtyard and almost shot at Boone, who jumped up at her appearance.

He didn't appear any worse for wear. She smiled in a dazed sort of way, then blinked slowly and tried to find the words. She passed out onto the ground before she could muster them.

* * *

When she woke, another kind of panic set in before she fully came to. She was starting to wonder when she wouldn't wake up again, when she would finally be buried without someone to dig her up. In her fear, she wanted to run, to leave the Mojave. But she knew that wouldn't happen. She'd die one way or the other.

McCrae came to, leaning against a sandbag barrier on the edge of the ruins. Boone was crouching beside her, his eyes out on the horizon, face impassive.

"Wha?" she slurred, then realized she'd been doped with something. She was moving slow and her tongue felt thick in her mouth.

"Give it a minute," he said. "It should be wearing off soon."

She felt for her neck. A dense bandage was wrapped around her neck and under her arm, her shirt open and her chest exposed. She felt embarrassed. Her underwear had been torn in the Vault and she hadn't bothered to put it back on. She adjusted her shirt carefully, avoiding eye contact.

"What happened?" she enunciated carefully.

"Got separated," he said. "You went on ahead when I got pushed back into a building by five of them."

She nodded, slowly. She vaguely remembered shooting wildly into a fray, then being lead away by a distraction. "Okay," she said. "Sorry."

"Seems you got the shit end of that stick," he pointed out.

She laughed bitterly. "Of course." She tried to push herself up but slid back down when her arm wavered. She noticed her hand hadn't been bandaged. It felt stiff but otherwise was not hurting.

"What did you give me?" she asked, feeling dried out.

"Med-X." He handed over a bottle of water.

She drank greedily, spilling it down her chest. She was going to chafe tomorrow, if she didn't find some new clothes. After a minute, she managed to push herself up off the sandbags and winced at the bandage. "It's too tight," she muttered. Her fingers were slightly numb.

"It's tight enough." Boone handed her pack over, then the tiny pistol. "I couldn't find your other weapons." He held out a pair of brass knuckles.

"Alright," she said, and slipped them into a pocket.

"Plan?"

"Vegas," she said, trying not to think about anything. The muscles in her face, where she'd been shot by the man in the checkered suit, twitched mercilessly. She put a hand to her face and swore.

He raised an eyebrow, but didn't say a word. They travelled east toward the entrance to Freeside, moving slowly at first. When the Med-X wore off, she had a moment of intense pain. "Goddammit," she said, falling forward. She caught herself.

Patiently, he waited for her to scrape herself off the pavement. She hobbled towards the east. "You know, we're completely out of money," she said.

"Could try Colonel Hsu at McCarran."

She stopped and breathed in slowly. She could smell a weird stink in the air, like infection or the heavy smell of blood. "What is that?" She raised her pistol up.

Boone surveyed the distance. "Don't see anything."

 _Damn. I hoped it wasn't in my head._ She holstered the weapon and sighed. "What's at McCarran."

"NCR has a monorail to allow access onto the Strip," he said.

"No shit?" She thought it over for a moment. "I think they owe us money, anyway. I suppose it would be worth a try."

They went around and stopped at Gun Runners to sell off some of the weapons that Boone had the presence of mind to remove from the Fiends. "Hey, we won't have to wheedle a ride, after all." McCrae shook the bag of caps and smiled. She rubbed her shoulder. "But we should go to McCarran, anyway. I gotta talk to Betsy."

After a short trip into McCarran and an extensive talk with Betsy, McCrae felt a bit better. She was still angry, so angry. But she couldn't vent that any more than she had already. Betsy held her in a tight grip, until she had to pry her hands off her, demanding to know what had happened.

"Nothing. Cook-Cook is dead, and apparently so is Motor-Runner. Not that I am in the habit of exchanging names with the bastards I kill." She smiled weakly at Betsy. "Sorry I stole your kill."

"I'm glad he's dead."

McCrae echoed the sentiment. "But I've been told by your C.O. that you ought to go to see Dr, Usanagi, at the New Vegas Medical Clinic. I think it would be a good idea, too."

Betsy sniped at her for playing up to the boys, but did eventually agree. With that, she collected the money for her kills from Major Dhatri and they left.

She stopped again in the parking lot of the El Rey and sat down. "I'm dying of hunger over here," she said. "Is there anything to eat?" She leaned against a car, pulling out a rag and wiping her face.

She was still covered in a good bit of blood. At least she had underwear now. _Such a doll, Betsy._

"Here," he said, and she found a wrapped package of Brahmin steaks under her nose. The bloody smell wafted up to her nose and she gagged, only managing to turn her head just in time. She threw up violently. It was mostly beans. She wanted to laugh.

"Ugh, at least cook it first," she moaned. She dry heaved a bit more.

He said nothing. She set up the campfire and cooked the meat, then ate in silence. The wind swept over the land, a never-ending hot dry breath. She sighed.

"I really don't want to go to Vegas," she said, finally.

"Then don't."

"I doan haff the opshun," she mumbled around her food. "I gotta get that damn chip to the customer or the Express will send out mercs and other nasty bodies to find and kill me. And if I'm lucky, it'll be over quick."

She shuddered. After that shit with Motor-Runner... she tried not to think about it, but it came back around the minute she pushed it away. She turned her face away from the fire and wiped tears away from her face. A few shuddered sobs later, she gained control of herself.

"I need a bath," she muttered. "But we'll camp here, since we need all the money we have to get into Vegas." The sun was setting on the second day outside of Freeside. She wondered how long it would be before the mercenaries came for her.

Later, she lay on her back on the ground, trying hard to sleep, but it wasn't coming easy.

"Tell me a story, Boone."

He didn't say anything.

"I'm serious, man. I can't sleep at all."

"I'm not your damn babysitter," he muttered.

"Well, if you don't say something, I'll be forced to sit here and belt out Radio New Vegas."

He didn't respond. She debated which song to start with, and was deciding on "Something's Gotta Give" when the dog ran into the camp. It aimed itself right at her.

She was up and immediately on top of the nearest car, her heart pounding. It growled at them, and Boone put it down cleanly. He looked at her up on top of the car, her knuckles white from gripping the rail.

"Wild dog," he pointed at it. Like that made it less scary. Part of her wanted to burst into hysterical laughter.

"Yeah... I know." She didn't move. "...Are there more?"

He looked with the scope out into the desert. "Nothing."

She eased off the top of the car and moved away from where it was laying. He looked mildly amused. _"What?"_ she finally asked, her back up.

"You're scared of dogs?"

She didn't answer right away. A howl in the distance made her jerk in surprise.

He actually had the gall to chuckle at her. She huffed, and decided they should try for Vegas, anyway.


	3. Outta Your Hair

Note: Sort of boring chapter, but I'll always remember walking into that casino, completely unprepared to face that bastard.

* * *

After getting into Freeside and onto the Strip, McCrae was waylaid by the creepy robot, Victor.

"Hey, pardner!" He rolled over to her. "I wasn't sure when you were gonna get here!"

"Can it, Victor. What do you want?" She put her hand on her hip.

"I've been asked to tell you to stop by the Lucky 38, pardner. It's very important. Mr. House has a personal message for you. You'll have to leave your friend outside."

She muttered something under her breath best not spoken loudly. "Fine. Boone, wait here."

Stepping into the Lucky 38 was like opening a sealed room with little air. It was stale and almost untouched. She glanced around at the tables and cashier's booths, then rode the elevator up to the penthouse as she was told.

There, she was greeted by a highly patronizing computerized face of a man, calling himself Mr. House. He explained to her that she was meant to deliver the chip to him, and he was very disappointed that she did not still have it.

"Well, mister, I did get shot by some asshole in a checkered suit," she grumbled.

"Ah, Benny. You'll find him at the Tops. Deliver me the chip once you retrieve it from him. The delivery won't be rendered complete until I have the chip in my possession."

She sighed in frustration. "Fine."

"And, should you be inclined, work will be forthcoming upon the completion of your delivery. Good day," he said, and the display powered down.

 _Great._ Now she was certain that she was going to get herself killed. _No more deliveries after this job,_ she promised herself. It was a bad time to be in the Mojave anyway. She would just leave, and not come back.

Victor informed her that she'd been allowed to use the presidential suite at the Lucky 38, and her friend was allowed, as well. She went down and retrieved Boone before riding the elevator to the rooms.

She was floored. "You could house an entire family in here," she said. "Maybe two." Upon her trip to the bathroom, she shrieked out, "Why would you need two tubs?!"

Boone parked himself at the kitchen table and didn't make a noise.

She took a bath, cleaned out from under her fingernails, washed as much of the blood as she could off, and cried without stopping. She didn't want to be like that. She reminded herself that she'd gotten out alive, and she needed to calm down and remember that. Unlike most of her other memories, she just couldn't lose this one.

 _And this dog thing. I need to remember why that one is, too._

She got out after maybe an hour or two. She didn't count the time. She went into the master bedroom and half-fell onto the bed.

* * *

The lights on the Strip were just coming on when McCrae and Boone left the Lucky 38. She was approached by an NCR soldier, bearing a message from someone called Ambassador Crocker, but she didn't bother to read it. She let herself goggle a bit at the amazing lights on the Strip before they walked down to the Tops Casino.

"You okay?" she asked Boone. He seemed off.

"Not sleeping well," he answered.

"Yeah, me either," she said. "Well, here goes nothing."

At the casino door, weapons were confiscated, as she expected. McCrae hid the tiny little pistol and her brass knuckles. Boone didn't have any option but to go unarmed. She didn't offer him anything; no way was she going _mano y mano_ with Benny without a weapon of some kind.

Before she went looking, she thought to talk with the counterman. "Hello, baby! Welcome to the Tops! What can I do for you?" he greeted her.

She was not amused. "Looking for Benny," she said.

"Oh, what you need him for? Swank can give you whatever you need, baby," he smarmed.

She smiled at him, trying to turn on her charm. "Thanks, hon, but I need to speak with Benny. It's business." She leaned onto the counter, looking him in the eyes. "Maybe you can tell me where to find him."

Swank cracked a grin. "Sure, baby. Benny's usually here on the casino floor. If he ain't here, he's up in his room on the 13th floor."

She leaned back and flashed another big smile. "Thanks."

"Hey, baby, when you get done with him, you come back." He winked at her.

She walked away before starting an under-the-breath mutter about men and Vegas and her luck. It would be a long time before she felt the urge to take that kind of offer up, maybe even longer if he was an estimation of the quality of New Vegas company.

 _If I hadn't been shot, assaulted and practically eaten,_ she thought to herself, _I might have been more agreeable._ She shuddered at the memory.

She almost forgot that Boone was there as she looked around for a checkered suit. Once she spotted Benny, her stomach dropped and she stopped mid-stride. Boone came up behind her, making it impossible for her to escape. She remembered that face, now. She also remembered that pearly piece-of-shit gun he carried.

She approached him slowly. He turned to face her just as she was being warned to stay away by the guards around him. _Big man in the casino, to have so many guards._

"What in the goddamn...!" He held his hands up. "Hey, listen," he said.

McCrae simply stared at him. She didn't trust her breakfast to stay down. A gentle bump from behind her reminded her that she was not in a private area.

"Let's talk," she said. "Alone."

"Yeah, baby, whatever you want," he nervously played with a key on his key ring. "I'll comp you the Presidential Suite. Give me a minute to clear my head and I'll come meet with you." He handed her a key.

She took the key and went into the room just across the casino floor. Settling in for a wait, she leaned against the wall by the door and stared at the back of a chair. After a few minutes, the intercom crackled to life.

"I hate to do this to ya, doll, but I just can't come in there," Benny said.

"What!" she yelled. "You rotten son of a bitch!"

"That temper of yours? Kinda why this conversation's taking place over an intercom. Look, I come in there, all you're gonna do is shoot _me_ in the head. As I told you, that's not happening, baby."

McCrae stomped to the door and tried to open it. "Let me out, you prick!"

"It'll open soon enough. Now I gotta skip town and get outta your hair." The intercom crackled again, and went dead.

"Don't that beat all," she muttered.

"He's a piece of work." Boone's voice carried well in the secluded suite.

She sighed. "He's crafty enough," she said. "I'll give him that. Doesn't make me feel any better for having been scammed _and_ shot, though."

When the door finally unlocked, she went straight to Swank and slammed her hand on the counter. "He's gone," she yelled.

"Not in the casino?" Swank shrugged. "Can't be home all the time."

"No, he left New Vegas entirely," she said, clenching her fist.

"Now why would he do that, baby?"

She gathered her wits and explained that Benny had been trying to pull a fast one on House. It took her a while to convince him, but once she had, he was somber enough about it.

"Guess that means I'm in charge. Ring-a-ding." He looked up at her. "Well, baby, I don't know if I should kiss or kill ya."

"Neither," she said, frustrated.

"That's fair. Listen, you need anything, you come on back to Swank. I always take good care of the VIPs 'round New Vegas."

McCrae screwed up her face. "What VIP?"

"Word is, you went into the Lucky 38. Ain't no one done that since New Vegas got started."

She threw up her hands and stormed out of the Tops. _I can't believe this shit,_ she told herself. _All over one measly fucking delivery._

As soon as she stepped out of the Tops, a man in a suit stopped her and pressed something into her hand. "The eyes of the mighty Caesar are upon you. He appreciates your service, and bestows upon you the exceptional gift of his Mark," he said.

She looked down at the Mark and then up at the man. She jerked back when she realized it was Vulpes Inculta. He smiled softly, a less vicious and more agreeable look on his face. "Why the hell would I want to talk to Caesar?" she muttered.

"It should interest you to know that your target, Benny, will inevitably fall into the hands of the Legion. All who attempt to go east are already in the net of the great Caesar. It is only a matter of time."

Confused, she held the coin in her hand, then watched as he touched his hand to his hat and began to walk away.

 _Remember Nipton._

She drew and fired. Boone's hand was on his rifle when Vulpes Inculta hit the ground. She removed his hat and spat on him. "Not so fucking tough without your goddamn dogs," she hissed. She tried the hat on and looked back at Boone. "I don't know how these people find out who I am."

"Doesn't take long for word to get around." Boone eyeballed a Securitron, who approached slowly.

"It wouldn't," she said, bitterly. "Let's get out of here."

She tossed her piss-stained hood into a trashcan on way back to the Lucky 38. After a moment of assessing her inventory, she realized it was going to cost her a small fortune just to get re-situated with her armor and guns. She bypassed the casino and went to Gun Runners, spending money she didn't want to. She had to cobble together a few sets of leather just to get hers back to working condition.

"You need anything?" she asked Boone.

"No."

* * *

They worked back to the Lucky 38 and she went to the bar area. Gathering up the booze and cigarettes, she shoved the bottles into her haversack and stuffed as many packs into her pockets as she could manage. "Hey! You got pockets, right?" she called down at Boone.

He slowly walked up the stairs to the bar area and she could tell there was something on his mind. She gestured to the barstools and went behind the counter, pretending for a moment that she was working it. "What can I get ya?"

"Are you going to speak with Caesar?" he asked, carefully.

"Not at this very moment." She swept a few bits of plaster from the bar and put her hands down, leaning on it.

He sat for a moment, unmoving. "...You never asked how I knew my wife was dead."

She picked up a bottle of vodka and halfheartedly made an attempt to wipe it clean. "It's none of my business. You made that pretty clear."

"She... I tracked her down. Southeast, near the river. They were selling her. Saw it through my scope." He paused. "Whole place swarming with Legion. Hundreds of them. Bidding for things no man has a right to."

McCrae opened the bottle and waited.

"I just had my rifle with me. Just me, against all of them, so... I took the shot."

 _Yeah, that's it._ She downed a gulp of booze and let out the breath she'd been holding. She swallowed more and then slammed down the bottle. "Is it always this way with you? Just so much hurt and anger, rolled into one big, silent package?"

He was, of course, silent. "I'm sorry," she said. "It's just..." She sighed and rubbed her eye. "Look, if it's a problem for you to go there, I'll go by myself."

"If you choose to side with the Legion―"

"I am not an idiot, Boone," she interrupted, angrily. "Legion means slavery, fear, and forced babymaking. That is _not_ a choice."

"Why even bother talking to Caesar?" He clenched his fists. "There's no guarantee you'll even come back from it alive."

She noted, that for the first time in their time together, his voice had become overtly angry. Not that his voice had raised in pitch or volume, but his words came quicker and his face was more animated.

"Maybe I just want to go in there and take care of him personally," she said. She took another gulp of vodka. "Or maybe I'm setting up a sneaky plan the likes of which you've never seen." She smiled at him, emboldened by the liquid courage.

He just looked sick to his stomach.

"If it makes you feel better, I am contractually obligated to retrieve that chip from Benny. I'm bound to die if I don't, and Mr. House doesn't seem the forgiving type." She gathered the remaining bottles into her haversack and looked around. There wasn't much more in the bar area to steal.

She went into the casino's safe room and was appalled. _Looks like someone was planning to ride out the bombs,_ she said to herself. _All this slap-dash planning, only to leave behind everything._ Piles of money, cigarettes and other goods lay scattered through the room. She filled her haversack up with as much as she could.

When she finally made it back up the to suite, she called out for Boone. He didn't answer, so she went looking. In the guest room, she found him sleeping as peacefully as one can while wearing a full set of clothes. She reached over and, on an impulse, removed his beret. A hand whipped out and grabbed her wrist, tightening. "Dammit!" she yelped, dropping the beret. He let go and she shook her hand. "I was just trying to be nice," she muttered, shaking her wrist.

She went to the master bedroom, feeling strangely. Reality felt distorted. She couldn't put a finger on what was wrong, like she had forgotten something, or forgotten to do something. It was uncomfortable, and she didn't know how to handle it.

 _If I do catch up with Benny,_ she thought, _I'll stab him in the eyes just for making my brain so broken._


	4. Social Visit

Note: Warning, torture scene, though probably could have been expanded. Eh.

* * *

In the morning, McCrae was paying for downing an entire bottle of vodka. The pain in her head was nothing compared to the pain in her back from having passed out on the bathroom floor. But she was nothing, if not stubborn. In the gloom of the kitchen, she lit a cigarette and scoffed as much buffout as she could fit into her palm.

With a grim smile, she cooked breakfast and made coffee. When she started eating, Boone came into the kitchen and joined her. She felt somewhat back to normal when she'd had the entire pot of coffee. He didn't say anything, though she knew he was up well before she had pried herself off the floor. If she hadn't seen him sleeping last night, she would have wondered if he ever did.

"What's the plan?"

She winced when he spoke. The buffout was a bad idea, she thought. Now, she was in twice as much pain. "I did a lot of thinking last night. I'm pretty sure I ought to gear up better before going out." She sighed. "I don't think we'd stand a chance at Cottonwood Cove if we didn't at least stockpile some ammo." _Not to mention I will delay this as long as possible, because I don't want to get killed by the Legion before House loses with patience with me._

She pulled up the map on her Pip-Boy and looked at it, squinting. She thrust it into Boone's face, moving herself closer. "This is where I was thinking we should look for a job," she said, almost breathing in his ear.

He flinched at her voice, and she backed off. He stared at the Pip-Boy, face like a stone.

"I think I saw some pre-war military vehicles up in that area." she said, rubbing her eyes. "I figure we can look around, see what's up. If anything, maybe there will be some loot."

"Alright," he said. "Better get some RadAway."

"Oh, damn," she said. "That reminds me. Here." She rummaged in her haversack and pulled out a few Stimpaks. "For emergencies."

"Never used one." He pocketed them anyway.

"I have, unfortunately. I should have back in Vault 3," she said. Her neck throbbed, and suddenly she was remembering it again.

She tried to push it away, think about anything else, but failed. Her gut began to boil and she dashed for the bathroom.

Her stomach wasn't much better by the time she done and wiped her face of tears. _God, what the hell must he think about that,_ she told herself. _Every five minutes, I'm off crying or throwing up._

She sat back on her heels. _Gotta keep it together. Shit happens, but you gotta do what you gotta do to stay alive._ But she laughed at herself and thought about what Boone had said about talking to Caesar. "No guarantees."

She walked slowly back to the kitchen. "I think that brahmin did not agree with my stomach," she announced, but it fell on deaf ears. Boone ignored her. "So, uh, we'll head east and then follow the highway down. If there's nothing doing there, we'll ask around McCarran again."

He nodded, staring at a spot on the wall opposite him. She sighed to herself and made herself ready to go. A quick inventory showed she had about five hundred caps left. In New Vegas, that would last about 30 minutes, she knew, what with the vendor prices.

They left the Strip, heading north through Freeside. She jammed the dapper hat down on her head and grumbled a little. _I wish I could remember, why the hell did I take that delivery job to begin with?_ She recalled Johnson Nash telling her about the other courier who had walked away from the order. She should have known better.

The two of them walked down the highway, heading east. McCrae picked cactus fruits and ate them noisily while they walked. The day was actually very pretty, the golden sun bringing out the colors of the desert. She admired the view. _Maybe this is why?_ She certainly could feel the attraction of the desert. There was a certain... beauty in the dust and sparkling sunshine, the amount of the distance one could see.

It was boring, walking the highway. North of Vegas they ran into some gang members―Jackals, or Vipers? she wasn't familiar with them―and although they got shot at, they weren't shot through. Her Pip-Boy registered a location near the Nellis Air Force Base but she stayed on the road. They could investigate that later.

They continued south, moving onto secondary roads. She checked her map periodically. Eventually they came to the area where she'd seen the trucks, and found a lot of irradiated barrels. She toed the glowing green liquid gingerly, then backed away carefully when she noticed some geckos hiding in the surrounding hills.

McCrae watched as Boone shot at and disposed of the creatures. She made a note to buy something better than her pistol, for long range targets. After collecting some meat and hides, they looked around more thoroughly.

The vehicles only held barrels of radioactive waste. She held her handkerchief to her nose and mouth and shook her head, disappointed. There was a cave mouth, she walked down into, but found that the radiation was too much for them to handle.

"I haven't got enough RadAway to take this place on." Her Pip-Boy said Vault 34. "I think we ought to look around a bit more. We could go up to the air force base up there, see how to get through. That gambler on the road said he knew how to do it."

Boone looked through her, and she sighed. "I don't know why I bother talking to you."

McCrae walked off, kicking a yucca. On an outcropping looking over the surrounding area of New Vegas, she sat down on a rock and rubbed her face. _I don't know what to do,_ she thought. _It should have been easy to get that chip from Benny. Now I have to walk into a Legion stronghold to get it back. And I doubt that will be any easier._

She thought about it. So far, all the things she'd had to do were handed to her on a plate, and she'd managed to fuck them all up anyway. She felt like beating her head off a rock.

Boone approached from behind her, and stood silently, watching over the wasteland. _And this guy,_ she thought. _Barely know the guy, asked him to come with anyway. Because I can't shoot for shit, because I need a bodyguard to keep my ass alive?_ She watched him from the corner of her eyes. _He's not much for company, that's for sure._

She looked up at the sky. The sun was still fairly high. She stood up and stretched, then motioned for him to follow her. Back on the road, she watched the distance, looking for anything that might be a good chance to make money. There wasn't much out here but the occasional animal, and a merchant or two walking the road. She bought more ammo and watched her caps dwindle.

* * *

After a few hours of scouring the area east of New Vegas, she paused for a breather at a small shack north of the Vault. She'd bypassed Camp Golf, didn't feel comfortable walking around a military base without permission. The lake was off in the distance, shimmering in the fading sun.

"Let's make camp here. There's a garden here, the shack probably has some food." Boone looked at her, patiently. "Oh, come on!" She rolled her eyes. "People who keep animals don't usually leave them out for the elements, like that sorry calf over there."

She flung a hand out at the pitiful thing. It lowed sadly. "Besides, I don't want to go back and tell House that I haven't got that stupid chip yet," she added.

"Fine," he said.

She pulled open the door to the shack and looked inside. It was a mess, but there was a bed and a lot of various odds and ends for fixing electronics and other items. She picked through it, looking for anything of value, pocketed a few bottles of turpentine, then went back outside to make food.

It grew darker and she adjourned to the shack, letting Boone take first watch. It seemed like she had just closed her eyes when he was shaking her shoulder, waking her. She took over watch without complaint.

The moon rose over the Mojave. Bored, she drew in the sand with a stick, then amused herself by counting what stars she could see through the clouds. She almost missed the man in the distance, while she was looking up. He was close enough that she could see his NCR armor and helmet when she finally noticed him.

 _Aw, shit,_ she thought. _Maybe someone does live here and we're in trouble._ She checked her pocket for the brass knuckles, then laid her gun down on the ground beside her. She debated on waking up Boone, but decided against it. It was just some soldier from the NCR; she didn't think she'd need any help dealing with this. And she didn't want to have to wake him up after that incident with his beret.

She didn't recognize his outfit other than the NCR trappings. It looked different than the other uniforms she'd seen. When he came closer, he slowed and grabbed the fence around the shack. "Got any water?" he asked, coughing dryly.

She pulled a bottle out and tossed it over to him. He drank it immediately. "You okay?" she asked.

"Oh, yeah, yeah. Just fine. I forgot my canteen back at the tent. Patrolling this damn desert, going 'round in circles..." he laughed and then coughed again. "It gets to you." She managed a brief smile. He cracked a grin back. "Are you alone?" he asked.

Her eyes darted to the shack. "No," she said. She moved her hand down to her gun, and furrowed her brow. _Something's not right._

"You're pretty far north, what brings you out this way? Most folk avoid this ridge, there's too many critters." He sat down across the campfire from her, leaning back on the fence.

"Better to have a wall at your back, less to watch out for," she said. _Is he really a soldier, or am I losing it?_ Where was his squad, there should have been more soldiers, NCR didn't go anywhere alone, she knew that much.

Something fell across the back of her head, then. She didn't go down, but her head ballooned with pain and she fell forward onto her hands. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her gun get kicked away, out of her reach. She fumbled her hands into her pocket, trying to pull out her knuckles, someone grabbed her hands and slammed them into a rock. She dropped the knuckles and they were tossed away as well.

She swore, and was pushed down into the dirt, her hands pulled behind her and tied firmly. There were two men, both wearing NCR armor, and one grabbed up the bottle of water she'd tossed to him. This was shoved into her mouth and secured in place with duct tape. She couldn't see very well with the dirt in her eyes, but heard them talking.

"Not alone," the first one said.

"Where?" the other asked.

"There," the first one pointed at the shack.

 _Hah, I hope you bastards like seeing your own insides,_ she told herself. _He's just about as cranky as a mad brahmin when he wakes up._

But, to her surprise, instead of dragging Boone out of the shack, they placed a board in the dirt in front of the door and jammed it into the door. It was effectively held shut by this. She panicked, tried to get up and run away.

She made it a few wobbling steps before she pitched forward. Without her arms to keep her balanced or catch herself, she went down and hit her head on a rock near the campfire. Blood spilled onto the ground.

 _I am just not suited for guard duty,_ she thought to herself, blinking blood and dust from her eyes. _If I get out of this one, I'm going to get myself five more people to watch my back. ...And a missile launcher._

She tried not to panic again. It wouldn't help.

One of them grabbed her shoulder, hauled her up, and she was forcibly marched forward, away from the shack. Neither spoke, as they walked over the bumpy ground, only stopping once in a while to scan the area for danger.

She didn't know how long they walked. The moon was still in the sky when Camp Golf came into view. _Oh, I hope that's where we're going,_ she thought. _Don't know what the hell I did, but please, please let us go there._

They passed Camp Golf, though, and she fought back tears when the hills finally occluded it from her sight. She wondered who these men truly were, now. They weren't acting like NCR were supposed to. She knew there were bad eggs in every group, but this was too much for just some stupid thrill.

They followed the train tracks up until the tracks intersected with a road, then walked the pavement up into the hills. There wasn't a single animal or person on the road beyond themselves. Eventually, the two approached a small shack wedged into the rocks between the train tracks and asphalt.

Inside, she was pushed onto her knees, and she heard a knife unsheathing. Tears fell from her eyes. _If this is the way it ends... I don't want to die not knowing who I am!_

The knife's edge traced the back of her leather. _I'm so sorry, Boone,_ she thought. _I should not have asked you to come with me._

She felt a tug and heard stitches popping. A cold bit of air ran up her spine as she was cut right out of her clothing. She shuddered, the knife slipped, and the cold metal made her gasp.

She shook all over. A voice in her head reminded her repeatedly what had happened the last time she'd been captured and nearly naked. When one of the men put something over her head, she started and was held down, her face covered by what felt like a canvas sack.

It was clothing, they'd put her in some sort of rough tunic. She looked down at it and realized it was a slave outfit. _What?_

Her armor was discarded in the corner. The two of them gathered up some random junk from the room, then threw open the doors to the cellar. She was practically thrown down the stairs, only managing to stop herself from falling by landing on the bottom step ass-first.

The man who had spoke to her at the camp flung off his NCR helmet and turned her to face him. "You might be wondering why you've been bound, gagged, and brought here," he said, his voice tinged by an underlying anger.

She nodded. The other stared on with cold, hard eyes.

"You've slain our superior," he continued. "Even if we are to be condemned for our actions, you will know the pain tenfold. We aren't afraid to follow him into death, but you... _you should be_."

He ripped the tape off her mouth then, and she managed a muffled cry of pain. She coughed the bottle out of her mouth and kept coughing for a moment, trying to buy herself some time. _Superior?_ She couldn't think of anyone in the NCR she'd _ever_ killed.

"I have no idea what you mean," she croaked out.

He struck her across the face, then, and she stared down at the corner of the room, trying to distance herself from the pain. _Stay calm_ , she told herself.

"You have slain Vulpes Inculta!" he raged.

A manic titter rose in her throat. _Unbelievable._

He threw her to the floor, and rained blows on her head and shoulders. The bandage on her neck tore and the bite wound began to bleed.

The other put a hand out to his shoulder. "Come, Manius. Stop this. There is time."

"Yes," Manius said, standing.

McCrae stared at a tin can across the floor. She laid there, thinking quickly. Legion forces, dressed as NCR, infiltrators. They must be _frumentarii_ , like Vulpes Inculta had described himself. Something in the back of her head clicked together. _Couriers. Caesar won't let couriers be harmed, since so many are frumentarii._

"You can't kill me," she said, rising from the floor. "I am a courier."

Manius snorted in disgust. "Once I am finished with you, you will _wish_ I had killed you."

She stared up at them through the loose hair that had fallen into her face. The other man grabbed her arms and bodily put her onto a table, then untied the rope around her hands. She threw an ineffective punch before being tied down to the tabletop. She fought it, but there was simply nothing she could do.

"Aulus, where is that knife?" Manius called out from another part of the cellar. Both men left her alone on the table for a minute. She willed her tears to stop. _Don't be here, go away, don't think about it, leave it._ She shut her eyes and searched her scattered memory for anything that would take away from the terror.

A knife cut into her flesh, sharp and unyielding. She cried out. Blood was flicked into her face. "Open your eyes, Profligate," Manius said. "Watch the glory of Caesar as we carve it into you."

She sobbed. He cut into her, repeatedly. She began feeling lightheaded on top of the pain. Aulus brought in a hot poker, and she bucked on the table when he began to apply it to her stomach. She must have screamed. She didn't know if she did.

She pushed herself away from the pain. It was like she was watching from the outside in, through a window. They broke her arm with the handle of a machete. Boiling water was poured onto her. Manius choked her into unconsciousness, and she woke up to a battery diode being applied to her face.

Her face began to twitch again, contorting her expression. Manius delighted in this.

When he pulled out the lead pipe and announced his intention of defiling her with it, the room grew hot as fire and smelled so strongly of metal she couldn't stop herself. It felt like a weight on her shoulders was gone.

Death came to the courier, though as with the previous time, it would only be a social call.


	5. Bonnie and Craig

"Ouch!" Bonnie sat back on her heels, sticking her finger in her mouth. She glared at the prickly pear she'd been picking the fruits from, her mouth pursed. "Stupid cactus."

"Mind youself, Bonnie," her father said, lifting his hat up off his brow. "Everything in the desert bites."

"I know," she said, and went back to work. She looked out over the field, rows of cacti and people tending it. Her mother waved a gloved hand at her. She waved back.

"Angus," someone called out. Her father looked up, then stood and brushed the dirt off his pants. He walked off.

Bonnie kept picking the fruits, singing a little song to herself and making a game of it. She stuffed as many fruits into the basket as she could without crushing them. It soon became full, and she carried it to the drop cart.

"Hey, Jacki," she called up to the driver, sitting on the cart with a rifle in her hands. Jacki grunted. "Have you seen my dad?"

Jacki motioned off to the tents where the migrant workers slept. "Was talkin' to Boss," she said.

Bonnie thanked her, and walked off towards the tents. When she got close, she could hear arguing. _Dad must have lost the job again._ She stood still as a stone, and listened.

"I doubt you, I really do," said Boss. "Using an assumed name to get work is deceitful."

"I never said my last name," her father answered. "If you fire me, you lose three workers."

"Don't even try that. All three of you are gone as soon as you step out of this tent, or I'll have the boys chase you out."

Bonnie chewed on a thumbnail. It was like this everywhere they went. She didn't know much about it. She'd heard people talk about accountability, whatever that was, and responsibility, and making amends. Her father never said a word about it. Her mother would press her lips together and pointedly ignore any questioning.

She heard "NCR" too. She knew that one. That was the New California Republic, and they were members of it. At least, she thought they were, because she'd talked with other kids at the camps and found that sometimes it was best not to say what you were. A few of the kids had been beaten up for proudly mentioning that their parents served in the military.

She slowly moved back to the rows of cactus, dangling her basket by two fingers and swinging it lazily in a circle. Ever since she could remember, they had moved north and south, working the migrant camps that were left available to them. About once a year, someone would realize who her dad was and they were no longer welcome in that camp.

She wondered how long it would be before they had no jobs left.

"Hey, Bonnie," another worker yelled. "Run a message up to Boss. There's some fire ants up behind those rocks there," he said, pointing.

She jogged off, the basket left spinning in the dust. Gunshots echoed in the distance, and the sharp crack of the repeaters moved her to faster speed.

"Boss!" she yelled out. "Ants!"

And a rippling pain through her hip and up her side made her collapse onto the ground, at the opening of the tent. She looked up before she passed out to see an angry face and a raised rifle, aimed at her.

* * *

"Bonnie hasn't been the same since she got shot," she heard her mother say.

"We can't afford to move again," Angus said. "We'll just have to find a doctor out here to help her."

"In Northstar?" Her mother scoffed. "Are you kidding?"

"Well, what do _you_ think we can do, Mamie?" Angus threw his hands up.

Bonnie shuffled out the door, silently. She pushed the door to the tiny shack shut and walked out to a pile of cars that served as the gate to the community, favoring her bad leg. Her parents had fought continuously since they'd left the last migrant camp, and settled in Northstar. She hated it. She wished they would stop, and everyone would go back to who they were.

Her father slammed the door to the shack and then stopped. He came up to the car gate and smiled a friendly smile. "Hey, pretty girl," he said, sitting on the edge of the gate.

"Are you done fighting?" she asked.

"I don't know," her father said, pensively. "Mama is pretty angry."

"Why did you leave the NCR?"

He didn't answer for a while. Then he laughed, helplessly. "I used to be a pretty important person, back in the day. People are often picky about who's in charge of stuff. They picked someone else because I wasn't doing what they wanted."

"They make you leave?" Bonnie asked, crumbling a bit of dirt in her palm.

"No... Well, when you were born, there was a lot of arguing going on, and your mama and I decided to go on our own." He leaned backward onto the cars. "It was easy to see that people didn't like me anymore."

"Does mama want you to go back?" She nudged a rock with her foot.

"Mama wants you to be safe," he answered. "If it means you get better, I might have to."

"Then she should stop fighting with you," Bonnie said.

Angus laughed, then, and she couldn't help but join in. He always had the most infectious booming laugh. "Oh!" she stopped and looked up to the sky. "Snow!"

They sat and watched the snow, until it was too cold to stay out any longer, and Bonnie felt a little better for having talked with her father.

* * *

He was leaving, now. They had discussed it and argued a little more, and a few weeks later they were all moving west to better-controlled NCR territory. Angus had re-enlisted and was starting over, and they'd been offered a starter home somewhere in California. He explained to her that when people wanted to make an area more inhabitable, they had to send pioneers out to live there for a while.

She liked that. She liked to think that they were explorers, brave souls scouting the land and making it good. She was excited about this change.

* * *

Three years later, he was dead.

They said he'd died as a martyr. To protect his fellows he had given himself up to the enemy, to the Legion. That he'd been crucified and died an agonizing death.

Mamie and Bonnie left the new house and Mamie moved in with a relative in Carson City. When she was fifteen, Mamie had met someone else, and when she was sixteen, Mamie had remarried.

Bonnie was gone the moment her mother told her about it. She didn't care anymore. She went around the migrant camps, working for her living as best she knew how. It was steady work, and she was treated fairly. When she was twenty she moved further south than she had been before and came across the Mojave Express. She signed on as a courier and began a regular mail route along the mountains.

She spent most of that time alone, well-hidden in the nooks and crannies south of New Vegas. She'd never actually been there. She stayed as far away from the big cities as she could.

Until she picked up the delivery to the Strip.

It wasn't a big delivery. Just some chip made of a very hard metal and larger than it ought to have been. She shrugged, pocketed the thing, and made her way north from Primm to the next town along, Goodsprings. A job was a job.

Close to Goodsprings, she came across Powder Gangers who were causing trouble. Quickly, she shunted off into the mountains, picking her way through the brush. At some point she jumped down from a ledge and the ground exploded under her feet. She was knocked unconscious.

She woke to being shot in the head.

* * *

The first thing she noticed was being carried. Someone was holding her, carrying her roughly over a hazy blur of sand and rock.

There was the pain, but she paid it no mind. It was so much she couldn't even feel it anymore.

 _Pain always goes away._ She remembered her mother telling her that, when her father had died.

Shock, then, and she could remember everything. Everything from her early childhood to Benny and the Khans, the Fiends, the Legionaries.

She vomited. It was bloody.

Whirling past her was a sea of white sky and brown dirt.

"It's snowing," she mumbled. Her tongue didn't feel right, like it was too big for her mouth. She shivered in the heat.

" _Stay alive!_ " she was ordered.

"But," she started to say, and trailed off. _There isn't much choice._

Her head was squeezed against a soft shirt. _Mom_ , she thought. _Have I blamed you this whole time? For nothing?_

She vomited again.

And went back to that time in her memories when she was a happy child with a happy mother and father, picking cactus fruit for money.

* * *

Her head pounded.

"Who's going to pay for this?" someone asked.

"House will," Boone said.

"Are you _sure_ that―"

"He will. _Fucking bill him and get on with it!_ "

"We aren't really equipped for this level of traum―"

A scuffle. Thuds landed.

"She helped you when you needed it," Boone muttered, under his breath.

* * *

When she finally opened her eyes and could see clearly, she saw fluorescent lighting and heard an unearthly silence. She looked to her sides and realized she was in some kind of doctor's office, or at least, an operating room. There was a tray full of equipment nearby, but she couldn't tell where she was, exactly.

She stared at the ceiling for a long time. There was a lot to think about, now that her memories had returned. She was alive. So was Boone, or at least, she thought she had heard him talking. _He got out alive, at least,_ she told herself. And that was comforting, because she was blaming herself for everything.

Pain was becoming intense. One arm was in a splint, bandages were rampant over her extremities and stomach. She didn't know how long she'd been in this place.

She turned her head and noticed there was an IV bag hanging nearby, but no lines in her arms or anywhere. _Maybe that's why I'm in pain._

Curiously, her head didn't hurt. She was conscious, unafraid, and had a clarity of thought that she hadn't enjoyed since before she got shot in the head. A person in NCR uniform came into the room and she was instantly aware that something, something important, was going on.

He sat in a chair next to her bed. "I am Colonel James Hsu," he introduced himself. "We haven't actually met before, but you were doing jobs for Major Dhatri at McCarran? That is where I am stationed."

She nodded.

"There has been an inquiry into your situation," he said, "but so far, it's come up blank. I have a few questions to ask you, if that's fine by you."

She nodded again.

"The shack where you were found seems to have been a cap counterfeiting operation. Were you aware of that?"

"No."

"Well, thankfully, it appears to be out of commission." He paused, took a breath and exhaled. "I am glad you survived this ordeal," he said. "The men responsible are gone, however. It's likely we won't find them."

"I figured that," she muttered. Even if they managed to get back into the Fort and weren't punished for breaking rank―which she highly doubted―they would be two faces in a sea of many.

"Now, onto other things," Hsu said. "Craig Boone tells us that you were given a Mark of Caesar by Vulpes Inculta, on the Strip. It was recovered with your belongings."

" _Craig?_ " she whispered. She laughed in her head.

"He found you," Hsu nodded. "If he hadn't brought you back to the Vegas area, we may have lost a valuable opportunity."

She stopping laughing. "What?" she asked.

"I don't have the authority to compel you, since you're a private citizen. But the mark only extends to you, and we'd like you to reconnoiter the Fort."

She turned her head away from him and looked at the far wall. _Is it my father's blood in me, that makes me into a martyr for the NCR?_ She'd survived death twice, after all.

"Angus McCrae," she said, when she turned back to face him.

"I've heard that name," Hsu said. "He died a hero."

"My father," she said.

He looked appropriately concerned, and respectfully said, "No one is asking you to undertake a suicide mission. Certainly, your visit to the Fort would be dangerous. All I'd like to know is an estimated amount of troops and any unusual weaponry on the hill. Caesar may open up to you, if he thinks you are worth speaking to in person."

"No guarantees," she echoed what Boone had said. She wondered how many days ago that was, now.

"I can't assume that your visit will go smoothly, anymore than you can," he agreed.

"When do I get out of here?"

"I'll let you speak to the doctor about that," he said. "If you'll excuse me?"

He left and she sighed. _Probably a looooong time before I see daylight again,_ she thought. _And I still have to worry about Boone. He'd shoot someone before I could even open my mouth._ She smiled at the thought. _Wouldn't blame him. But I can't have him shooting people, if I want to get that chip back._

She slept, for a while. She woke, terrified and hyperventilating, more than once. It took her a while to calm down enough to sleep again. She knew it was the Med-X; it had always made her paranoid. The torture-she blocked it away. She'd deal with that later.

The pain came and went. She slept through a lot of it, people coming and going, until she managed to catch one of the staff and demand they remove her from the pain medicine. A curious eye was on her, but they did take her off the Med-X.

She slept clearly for the first time in ages, then. When she woke, Boone was sitting in the chair next to the bed.

"Boone!" she said, surprised and happy. _I didn't think he'd still be around._

He shot her a sharp glance, then folded his hands in front of his face, pressing them into his nose. _Aww, what the hell,_ she thought. _He's gonna chew me out now?_

"Thank you," she finally said, trying to get the first words.

He just shook his head slowly. "You... you need to learn to scream. Or _something_."

She nodded. "Absolutely," she agreed. _I feel like the bad guy,_ she thought. _I am the bad guy, aren't I? I got him stuck in a stupid shack and then I died._

A few minutes of silence passed and she was stuck thinking to herself, an agonizing litany of her stupidity and irresponsibility.

"They're dead, you know."

She blinked. "Who?"

He sat back in the chair. "The Legionaries."

"How―"

With a smug look on his face, he said, "Can't run far if you can't move your legs."

"Okay," she said. _I don't know how to take that. Thanks, I guess._

"I heard that Colonel Hsu came to speak with you," he said. "Asked about the mark."

She let out a deep breath. "Wants me to see how many of them are at the Fort. I didn't say yes."

"Here," he said, changing the subject. "I brought this." He pulled out a Stimpak. "You want me to...?"

"Please," she answered. The needle was sharp, but it made her sigh in relief when it kicked in.

He stood, and was going to leave. "Wait," she said. "Bonnie."

He turned slightly, and she saw he was confused.

"My name. You can call me Bonnie, Craig."

And he smiled at that, for some reason, then left her to sleep again.


	6. Why Do You Stay

It was five days later that Bonnie managed to get out of the bed and walk around. Blisters had risen and gone from the boiling water and her arm was setting decently, according to Dr. Usanagi. She'd been forced to undergo therapy, though. Not that she didn't need it, she knew she did. But it made it all too real for her.

The worst of it was when she discovered the branded bull on her stomach. There were never so many curse words in the world when she saw what had been burned into her. She'd almost destroyed the room, throwing things, pitching a fit and unable to control herself.

Boone visited fairly often. She wondered what he was doing with his time in the world. He never stayed more than half an hour, long enough to avoid saying hello and give her a Stimpak. He both amused and baffled her. She kept blaming herself and getting stuck inside her own head for hours on end.

 _I promise I will make this up,_ she told herself. _I will not leave his side. Every time I have, it's ended so very badly._

And when she did finally get released, when Usanagi was confident she would be able to handle herself enough to make it back to the Lucky 38, she didn't look back.

At the Lucky 38, Bonnie went to the games room and sat down, having a long think. Boone was off in the kitchen, doing something loud. He was making the most noise she'd ever heard him make.

"Come eat," he finally said, poking his head into the room.

There was a feast laid out. Well, mostly meat, a few potatoes, some cactus fruit. It was more food than she'd seen in a long time, though. "Did―" she chuckled. "You didn't cook this, did you?"

He looked offended. "You learn," he said.

"Well!" She sat and eyeballed the plate in front of her. "Can't say I expected that from you," she said.

He shot her a look that was made of fire, as much as her cheeks burned. _Even with sunglasses on,_ she laughed at herself. She started eating, and the laughter died.

She put on a game face, trying to will herself not to lose a happy thought. _I survived death, twice. I have been assaulted, bitten, choked, bound, gagged, beaten, boiled, branded and violated. But I am not broken, I do not need to be fixed. I just... need to get the hell out of the Mojave._

Boone said something, she didn't hear. "What?"

"Eat," he said.

She realized she'd been staring into the air and holding her fork over the plate. "Oh."

It came again, before she was finished, that fog over her brain. She was jerked out of it, roughly, when something hit her in the chest. She looked down to see that Boone had thrown a First Recon beret at her, identical to his own.

"Don't ever touch mine again," he said, forcibly.

"I'm sorry," she said, and turned her head away, pushing back tears.

She found a safe place in her memories, and used it to focus herself back on the meal. For once, she was talking less than even he did.

* * *

The silence lasted more than a few days. She would sit and will herself not to think about bad things, by dredging up memories of her past. She wrote a letter to her mother, but put it away without finishing. She didn't need Mamie McCrae down her throat about her running away on top of everything else.

"Boone," she asked, then corrected herself, "Craig, how old are you?"

"Twenty-six."

And she laughed at herself. "I'm so old."

* * *

A week passed and she tried very hard to make conversation, but failed at it. There was a definite change in the air between them. She felt like it was easier to talk to him, wondered if he was more amicable about talking to her because she'd been through hell. Wondered if he was glad she'd lived through it.

A sobering thought, that. She put on her brass knuckles and punched the walls a few times. Victor's computerized voice came clearly through the gloom to ask her not to destroy casino property.

"Okay, I have to get out of this place," she said to him one day. She was pretty sure it was day; her Pip-Boy was the only she could tell time.

"Doctor's orders," he said. "House says so."

"I'm going mad, stuck in this stupid tower!" she groaned.

Boone said nothing. Bonnie played with the beret he'd given her, and then put it on. She didn't know if she liked the way it fit. She sighed in frustration, then changed out of her leather armor into a simple shirt. She'd been hoping he would cave to pressure.

She laid on the master bed and traced the brand on her stomach for a while, thinking about sunlight and fresh air, until she fell asleep.

* * *

She woke to the sound of glass breaking, and shot out of bed towards the source of the sound. A curse sounded in the kitchen, and her heart was pounding.

Boone had dropped a pitcher and was cleaning it up when she came into the kitchen. She relaxed a little bit. "Here, I'll help," she said, kneeling down to pick up the pieces.

He glanced up at her, then away, then stopped and stared. "What―" he started to say, then looked away again and went back to cleaning up the floor.

She was reminded that she was not wearing much clothing. Embarrassed, she dashed out of the kitchen and back to the master bedroom, burying herself in the bedclothes. She held back tears; trying to keep the monsters in her her at bay was hard enough without a hefty dose of mortification. Boone had seen the scars and the bull, and she was still conscious of the shame of having been branded. She sobbed quietly, rocking herself.

The door opened and she went still under the covers. A moment later, he was sitting beside her, touching her on the back through the bedsheet. She took a breath and started crying harder, letting it all out.

He put an arm around her, then, and she felt better. "Got to be tougher," he said.

"I'm trying," she sniffled, her voice muffled.

And, because he was still Boone, he left the room abruptly. She laughed through the tears.

* * *

Bonnie kept herself fed and concentrated on healing, but she was more than antsy to get out of the Lucky 38. Boone would not let her leave without having full use of her arm. He told her some story about a man who'd not let his heal and lost his life to an infection. She rolled her eyes.

She amused herself one day by going to the cocktail lounge and staring out over the Vegas ruins, imagining what she would do if she were in control of the Strip. Her daydream involved Securitrons and wiping out the Fiends. She smiled, and it was a smile of unrepentant joy.

Come to think of it, she hadn't heard much news about anything in the wasteland. She went back up to the suite and sought out Boone.

"Craig," she said, leaning on a door frame. "Have you heard anything about the Fiends, lately?"

"No," he answered.

"You haven't been out of the Lucky 38 for almost a week," she pointed out.

"Yeah," he said. "But no one's leaving today."

"Ugh, you can't keep me here forever!" she yelled in frustration, and went back to the master bedroom.

 _Since when did I let him have power over me?_ she asked herself.

 _Technically, it's House that won't let you out,_ her mind came back.

 _Well, Boone shouldn't treat me like a child,_ she thought.

 _You are_ acting _like a child. It's only fair you are treated like one. Can you really blame him?_

"Egggghhhh!" she groaned, punching her pillow. _I can no more help my feelings than_ he _can. I'm tired of being stuck here, thinking up solutions to problems that will kill me._

 _And what do you think his feelings are? Why does he stay, if he doesn't want to put up with you?_

She clutched a pillow to her chest, staring at the floor. She hadn't thought about that. Why _was_ he still here?

On that thought, he entered the room and opened the gun chest at the floor of the bed, pulling out the guns she hadn't sold. "We'll go through the weaponry tonight," he said, quietly. "Tomorrow, we'll leave."

She watched in silence as he pulled out a battered cowboy repeater, a broken service rifle, and laid out an assortment of pistols that she was so fond of using. The silence was painted in the room, forever brushing out onto the air.

"Bonnie," he finally said, "I know you're upset."

She snorted. _If it was that obvious..._

"I don't intend for anyone to get the jump on us again."

"I don't either," she said. "I just feel trapped in here." _There, now you're acting an adult, talking about a problem._

Boone said nothing, but put away the service rifle and repeater. He looked over her pistols momentarily. Then he balled up his fists and said, "I don't want you to end up like I am."

She looked at him, a question in her eyes. "What, seeking revenge? Or killing every Legionary you see?"

"Looking for death," he clarified.

"I haven't noticed that," she murmured.

He stood in silence. "I'm helping you with your delivery," he said, slowly. "Been keeping you out of trouble, or saving you when you found it. Haven't done a real good job of that." He paused.

"And?" she asked, wondering when he would get to the point.

"I don't expect the same from you," he said.

She was floored. She realized now she hadn't given him much opportunity to want to stay with her; her behavior had been selfish and pointless. He came with her because she asked, and he had nothing better to do. She'd never even bothered to ask him what he would rather do, just dragged him along into her own problems.

 _I hardly bothered to get his opinion, either._

"Why do you stay?" she asked.

"You asked me to come with you," he answered.

"Yeah, but..." She rubbed her eyes. "You could have walked away at any point, if you wanted. Why not?"

"Haven't got anyone else to travel with." He stared into the air.

She wanted to laugh, it was so ridiculous. That wouldn't be fair, though. It was a relief to know that there was still a person inside the cold machine that Boone could be. More warming to know that he had come to depend on her company, as shitty as it had been lately.

"We're a hell of a pair," she said, smiling a little.

The room became quiet. Bonnie stood and stretched her legs, then her arms. He stood silent as a stone, working his jaw like he meant to say something.

"I will never be able to thank you enough," she said. "For saving my ass repeatedly, putting up with my born-in stupidity when it comes to combat. Before I was in the Mojave, I sneaked around and kept to the shadows, rather than tackling problems head-on. Didn't see much use in shooting at things, since I ain't good at it. I usually ran away, avoided the dangers."

"And Benny?" he asked.

"Can't avoid an explosion if it's right under your feet," she said. "And it was my life or his, at that point. To deliver the chip."

"The Fiends, then."

She felt a stab of pain in her heart. "I wasn't myself then. And there are... alternate ways of escaping a problem you've created. I didn't know you very well then, either, so how was I know what could happen?"

"You know me better now?" he asked.

She was very still. _I don't, really,_ she thought. _I don't know him at all. But he's saved my ass on occasion, and he stuck with me, which is loyalty you can't buy._

She wondered if he was better for her company, or is she'd been mistaking his camaraderie for his normal behavior. After all, she'd never known him before Carla was gone. He could be acting like himself, for all she knew.

"...I trust you," she said. "I haven't had much chance to get to know you better, but I think that is our own fault."

"Tomorrow," he said, and left the room.

Sleep didn't come easily to Bonnie, but when she finally managed to, she resolved to do something for him. To prove to him that she was not a selfish prick. And maybe to prove to herself that she was not the easy come, easy go person that she had been in the past.


	7. Doomed

For the first time in several weeks, Bonnie stepped out of the Lucky 38 into the warm air of the Strip. The same old stink of unwashed bodies, rotting trash and sex. It was the best air she'd breathed in a long time.

She came to a stop before they left Freeside, and turned to consult Boone.

"I keep hearing talk about a place called Bitter Springs," she said. "I hear you were there."

"I don't want to talk about it," he said.

"Fair enough. But, if we travel there, no bad memories are going to pop up?"

He didn't answer. She nodded to herself. "We'll work on that." She led the way out of Vegas.

It felt good to be back in the desert, even if she didn't feel confident about her plans. The familiar sand under her feet, the hot air in her lungs, the broken bits of asphalt lying around. She felt at home again, alive in the sunlight.

She chewed on the inside of her cheek. Part of the reason she'd chosen to travel to Bitter Springs had been because she had to go past the cap counterfeiting shack. If things went well, she could face her demons, and Boone his. She wasn't looking forward to either event.

 _He must realize what this means,_ she thought. They were well on their way toward the shack where he'd been trapped. She kept her eyes peeled.

When they had reached the area, she noticed immediately how he'd gotten out of the shack. The door and frame were distorted, pushed outward from the metal walls. The door was hanging by one hinge. She glanced at Boone, wondering what he was thinking.

He didn't bother to look.

Her heart beat hard in her chest as she walked the same route the Legionaries had taken, remembering her silent pleas. They sneaked past some deathclaws without problem but when they came to the junction of the road and rail, she pointed out a gaggle of them roaming the train yard. "We have to follow the road," she said.

"Yeah, I see them." He looked up at the road, then shot her a critical glance. "You sure about this?"

 _No, not really,_ she thought, but said, "It's either sneak back through the ones we left behind, or march on."

They followed the road, northeast into the mountains. The alluvium began to change into larger chunks of red rock and vegetation. Bonnie grew increasingly nervous as they approached the cap counterfeiting shack. Her feet felt as heavy as lead, and she slowed to stop nearing it.

 _It's just a place in the world,_ she told herself. _Bad things happen to people everywhere in the Mojave. Just because it happened to me, doesn't make me special._

Boone pushed her shoulders. "No wimping out now," he said.

She couldn't reply, her mind was seized with the pain and agony it had been to be strapped to that table. She felt her feet moving, and automatically walked forward past the building. Then she dropped to her knees and cried silently.

This didn't last very long―Boone had her by her arm and was pulling her away from the from, towards a large rock. "I'm―I'm okay," she muttered. "You can let go." She hiccuped.

"Quiet," he said. "Listen."

She turned an ear to the air. A soft chittering and the rustling of wings met her senses. " _No,_ " she half-whispered, half-moaned.

"They're all over the road," he muttered, pulling her further behind the rock. "Probably a nest nearby."

Of all the creatures in the desert that they could have run into, they just _had_ to find cazadores. _Fuck, fuck, fuck!_ she thought. _I have no antivenom, I barely have enough ammo to take down one cazador, never mind a whole nest._

The bad memories crystallized and were hidden in the back of her mind. She scanned the area and pointed up to a jutting shelf of rock. "There," she whispered.

They climbed up to the rock and Boone surveyed the lay of the land with his scope. Bonnie pulled out her pistol but put it away, and decided to give her cowboy repeater a chance. She looked it over and sighed. "I won't be able to do much damage until they are closer," she said quietly.

"Keep an eye out and cover me," he said, lining up a shot.

She crouched down, and watched the fast-moving insects scuttle around the desert floor.

The first shot went wide, but hit a cazador in the wing. It flipped through the air, then began to wobble up the hill towards the source of the shot. Boone grunted in satisfaction and began to shoot the rest of them, aiming for the wings.

Bonnie aimed and took down the crippled ones that were coming up the hill. She ran out of ammo just before the last one made it to her.

"Craig―" She moved back on the rock, brushing past him. She looked for her pistol, her fingers not working. "Craig!"

A heavy boot came down on the cazador, pinning it to the ground. The hunting rifle swung around and went right to its head―if those enormous red eyes head any semblance of a mind, she'd never know―and it exploded into a yellow, sticky mess.

The cazador writhed under his boot, spastic in death throes. Boone swore and jerked his foot back.

"Is that all of them?" she asked, poking a head up over the rock.

"Only saw five," he said. He stomped his foot onto the ground and tried to scrape off the cazador guts.

She kept looking over the rock and didn't see anything. "Alright, I guess we keep on."

After a minute or two, though, she noticed Boone looked tired, his movements sluggish. "Let's take a break," she announced, and they detoured down towards the lake.

"Wanna stop here?" she asked, gesturing to a shack along the lake. "We don't need to, but it couldn't hurt to look around."

"Yeah, whatever," he muttered.

She wondered what was on his mind. Down by the lake, she hummed a tune to herself, smiling when they opened the door to the shack and heard Mojave Music Radio playing "Big Iron." She recalled a saloon she'd visited years ago, of the same name.

Boone checked the door, then pulled the only chair in the room over to sit in front of it with his rifle laid across his lap. Bonnie half-hummed, half-sang as the song finished playing on the radio. She scrounged through the containers she could find, pulling out a handful of 5.56mm ammo and some shotgun shells she had no use for. "Not much," she said.

Looking at the meal on the table, she crinkled her nose at the layer of irradiated dust on it. "Guess it's gecko jerky again." When she'd quit looking, she sat on the bed in the corner, and coughed as a blanket of dust rose up to envelope her. "I think I'm getting spoiled by the Lucky 38."

He was quiet. She sighed to herself. Maybe he was thinking about Bitter Springs, or maybe he was just on point today. She wished he would talk to her.

She laid back on the bed, stretching out, trying to relax. She knew she hadn't had to be lonely her entire life. Before her father died, the children at the migrant camps kept her company; after his death, the teenagers of Carson City had been her compatriots in minor crime and shenanigans. In her travels she had been all over Nevada and some parts of Utah, and she knew just how easy it was to find some willing soul wanting for attention. Usually that meant stiff drinks at a bar, drunken joking, and a half-asleep attempt at sex. It'd been enjoyable, she figured.

She didn't expect that from Boone. It was nice to travel with someone who was a stick in the mud. He was so unlike all the other people she'd ever traveled with. _And that is the reason I want to prove to him that I'm not an idiot._

...She'd never traveled with someone she wanted to impress, before.

Glancing over, she noticed his head was drooping. She got up off the bed, and went to him. "Hey, maybe you should take a nap," she said.

"It'll wear off," he mumbled, his head jerking back up.

She noticed he was sweating, and his skin looked pale. "You look sick. Did you get stung?" she asked, touching his shoulder.

He moved away in the chair. "It'll _wear off_ ," he repeated, talking through his teeth.

"No, you need to let me look at it. We should at least see if we can get the venom out," she said, and rummaged through her haversack for bandages. "And then you need to sleep off the rest. You could die." She grabbed his shoulder and pulled him, but he didn't budge.

"Come on, Craig," she said.

A minute passed. "If that's your thing," he said, and slowly rolled up the hem of his pants above his calf.

Bonnie crouched down and set the bandages to the side, looking at the affected area. The sting was above his foot where he'd stepped on the cazador, a dark purple puncture wound encircled by a reddened area of skin about the size of her hand. She winced, and gingerly touched the red area.

A bit of whitish fluid oozed out of the wound. She coughed, trying to cover up her gagging. With a steady hand, she squeezed the skin and pushed out as much of the excess fluid as she could. She cleaned it with an antiseptic and bandaged it as carefully as she could, then pulled his pants leg down.

He'd been still the whole time, and she found that he'd nodded off halfway through. "Craig?" she asked, softly. He didn't move. "Hey," she shook his shoulder, then hesitating, removed his sunglasses.

When she realized he wasn't going to move, she pulled out a Stimpak and passed it from one hand to the other. She didn't want to jab him. But her arm was still weak, and he looked heavy. There was no way she could get him into the bed alone.

She had an idea. She steadied him with her bad arm and tilted the chair back, dragging it backwards. It was slow going, but she got him to the bed, then tilted it again and adjusted as needed to put him on the mattress. She put the chair back by the table.

She rubbed her arm. "I'm getting better," she told herself. But the pain reminded her of the break, which set off a long trip into the darker parts of her mind. She turned up the radio on the shelf and tried to keep herself from thinking too much.

* * *

Two hours later, she was belting out "Let's Ride into the Sunset Together" and dancing about the shack when Boone woke up.

" _What the hell, Bonnie,_ " he said, raising his voice over hers and the radio.

She jumped in surprise, and turned down the radio, sheepishly.

"Does _everything_ in the wasteland know we're here?" he growled.

"Sorry," she whispered. She moved to the chair and sat down, hanging her head. She felt like a chastised child.

Boone picked up his rifle from the table and inspected it. Slinging it across his back, he came up behind her and pushed the back her head down until she was looking straight up at him. She sniffled and blinked back tears, staring up at his muddy eyes.

"I'm getting really good at making you cry," he said.

She was surprised. "What?"

He moved away. "Where are my sunglasses?"

She wasn't sure what to make of his behavior, but he definitely seemed in better spirits. "Here," she said, handing them back to him.

"Get on with it," he motioned to the bed.

"What?" she asked again, but he didn't respond, just pushed her out of the chair. He sat down and she shook her head. "I guess we ought to sleep around the same time, huh," she muttered to herself.

She laid down and tried to sleep. There was a faint smell coming from the bed, and she realized it was him. _How can a guy who only bathes once a week smell... nice?_ she asked herself, amused.

 _Don't act like a fool_ , some little voice in her head said. _You can't afford to get attached. No falling in love._

Drowsily, she asked herself, _who said anything about love? I just thought he smells nice._

 _Yeah, right. You thought more than_ that.

 _I'm not having an argument with myself about this,_ she thought. _He cares more about his hat than I do my own skin._

 _Then don't argue. Just listen._

She yawned, and for a moment she wondered what her brain knew that she wasn't catching onto. _Oh well, I guess I'll figure it out in due time,_ she thought.

 _You're doomed, Bonnie McCrae_.

* * *

"First," Boone said, "you need more ammo."

"That's a no-brainer." She put the shotgun shells on the table.

"You," he looked at her pointedly, "also need to learn to shoot better."

"Hey!"

"We will overlook that, for now. ...Are we still going to Bitter Springs?"

Chewing on a piece of jerky, she stopped mid-bite. "Doan shee why not," she mumbled around it.

He was quiet. She was patient. _I would love some way of speeding up this part, though._

"What did you hear about it?" he asked.

Bonnie swallowed and pushed her thoughts into a more coherent order. "Major Dhatri said that there was bad intel, and it caused the deaths of young and old Great Khans," she remembered. "Rather than the actual soldiers that were supposed to be there."

He clenched his jaw. She finished eating her jerky.

"Women, kids, elderly. Wounded too," he said, stiffly. "We radioed to confirm or orders. Shoot until we were out of ammo."

She bit her lip, hard. "You were there, then," was all she managed to say.

"Yes."

"And you did?"

"...Yes."

She sighed. He'd been through a hell of a lot in his short time on this world. "Do you want to go?"

"I don't know what I'm hoping to find there."

"Maybe you can make up for your mistakes." He didn't answer. "I'm going outside for a minute, I'll let you think about it," she said, and discreetly left the shack. She didn't go far, just around the corner.

Bonnie looked out over the lake and enjoyed the sparkling sunshine, thinking about her father. He must have had his fair share of action. She wondered just how often the NCR misjudged actions like Bitter Springs.

Twenty minutes passed. When the door opened, Boone approached her. "Hey. I thought some more about what you said. I think maybe you're right."

"So you do want to go?"

"Maybe I should."

With a flick, she pushed her hair out of her eyes and walked off to the northeast. There were more cazadores, but they were few and far in-between. Her makeshift pistol was earning its worth every time she fired it. She felt better about everything in general.

They walked up the highway past a collection of mired buses and trailers. Her Pip-Boy registered it as Bitter Springs Recreation Area. She noticed the marker for Bitter Springs up into the mountains, and moved up the hill toward it.

The camp was mostly tents, and pieces of buses and cars pushed together to make shabby housing. Refugees hobbled around the place. One of them muttered something about her traveling with a fucking murderer. _It's like peeling an onion with him,_ she thought, but took her First Recon beret off, in respect to the refugees. She had no right to claim affiliation.

The first thing she did was make her presence known to the C.O., offering any help she could give. Captain Gilles directed her to Dr. Markland, and she promptly went to the medical tent.

She couldn't bring him the books that he wanted, but she did have the doctor's bags he needed. She told him she'd keep an eye out for the books.

Boone parked himself behind her and didn't speak. She wondered what he was thinking about. They scoured the mountains, looking for supply caches that Gilles said were missing from the camp. The very last one, she nearly stepped into a bear trap, and there was a Great Khan inside the cave, but he was killed when he saw Boone and started shooting.

She wished it didn't have to happen that way. Even if the Khans who helped Benny were only in it for the money, the ones at Bitter Springs were only victims of circumstance.

After returning with the supplies, she and Boone looked around the canyons a little more. They came from the right side of the camp, looking out, into a little graveyard. He made some remark she didn't catch, and she stopped for a moment to reflect.

He told her about the canyon, then, about how the people had come through it in droves, and they'd shot them. Canyon 37. Showed her where he'd stood.

"I'd like to stay here for the night. Think some things over," he ended.

"Yes," she agreed. "You do what you need to do."


	8. Bitter Springs and Boulder City

It was uneventful for most of the evening. She tried not to make noise, sat and chewed thoughtfully on some jerky, willing her stomach not to flutter from the tension. He was in his own little world, and she didn't want to intrude. Finally, she slept, and around two in the morning, he woke her up.

"Something's wrong. Got a group coming our way. Looks like a Legion raiding party. It's big." He paused and scanned the distance. "It might be too big."

"Why would they come here?" she scrabbled to get herself up and armed.

"Easy target for grabbing slaves. Bunch of refugees, just a few soldiers defending it." He grinned a little, and she raised an eyebrow. "I don't think they're here for us. Too bad. Would've made me feel good about myself."

Bonnie forced a little laugh, almost inaudible. _He was right about looking for death,_ she thought.

"I'm not going to ask you to stay," he started to say.

"Oh, no way! You are _not_ killing Legionaries without me," she declared. Her voice was more confident than her stomach. _Goddamn gecko jerky._

Boone looked at her and said, " That day you showed up in Novac, I had a feeling I was supposed to go with you. That it was time to end all this. And know I know."

"Save it," she said, checking her pistol ammo and pocketing her brass knuckles. "It's not a swan song, yet." She adjusted her armor a bit, trying to get her confidence up. "Besides," she added, "I'm the one who's good at dying."

She jumped down from the ridge and sprinted across to the rocks overlooking the recreation area, and saw what Boone was talking about. _Oh, fuck me,_ she thought, and shivers ran up and down her sides. _Fucking Legion mongrels._

She swallowed her fear as best she could and shot down into the group, aiming for the dogs first. Her hands shook but she did her best. Boone picked up the leftovers, dispatching the Legion recruits with aplomb.

The first group used up her pistol ammo, so she discarded it on the rocks and pulled her knuckles out. _Brawls are always better,_ she thought, _when one has an object of persuasion in one's fingers._

The camp itself was the next battleground. Screams echoed in the darkness, bouncing off the rock walls. She ran up the hill, losing Boone in the fray, but aimed for the first thing she saw―a mongrel, and there were more of them, and she nearly panicked. She put the first one down with a heavy-handed blow, rather pleased with herself. The second grabbed her wrist in its mouth, while she was distracted, and she shrieked. She punched it in the face until it let go, then kicked it until it stopped moving.

Legionaries ran by her. One was immediately shot down―she guessed by Boone― and she snatched up a gun and loaded it, then moved back out into the action.

Neatly taking out a Legionary crouched behind a tent, she looked around for the next target. She still didn't see Boone anywhere, but if he was going to be shooting for accuracy, he'd want to be up higher, on the rocks above.

The adrenaline was coursing through her system now. There was a lull in the attack, and she didn't take any opportunity to pause, running back to the entrance of the camp where she could see all the places they might come from. More came from the road, streaming into the camp like a river over rocks.

A shot whizzed by her head, ricocheting off the rock wall beside her, and she felt chips graze her face. She returned fire until her ammo was gone, then tossed away the gun and launched herself at the nearest Legionary with her brass knuckles.

The impact knocked them both down the steep hill leading to the camp. When they came to a stop, she began striking him from above, venting all the rage she'd kept pent up.

Her luck with the Legion, however, was entirely shit, because he managed to turn her around and pinned her to the ground. He began punching her in the face, mercilessly. She yelled in pain.

It was over immediately, with an explosion of skull bone, blood and brain matter.

Bonnie laid on the ground for a moment, exhausted. Her nose was bleeding, and she could feel her eye swelling. She pushed the body of the dead Legionary off her, then struggled to her feet. Slowly, she made her way back up to the camp, feeling the blood on her hands beginning to dry. She didn't see any more Legionaries, but she was still on alert when Boone appeared behind her.

She jumped in alarm and struck out instinctively. The blow landed on a shoulder―she was tired and he sidestepped―but she was horrified when she realized she'd actually tried to attack him. _Shit!_

He just stood there, without expression, as always. _I should have "lost" his damn sunglasses._

"Well, we made it through," she offered, weakly. The pain in her face was blooming into a much larger headache. She noticed he had a machete wound on his arm.

"Doesn't change the past," he muttered, darkly. "A murderer who does good deeds is still a murderer. And he'll still get his judgment."

"It does change the present, and how much life you have yet to live." She touched her nose. "These people are now out of danger, and can live that much more."

He was quiet. She took the moment to sit down, and removed her knuckles.

"Life has a way of punishing you for the mistakes you make. Big enough mistake, punishment can take a while." He looked down at her. "I've got bad things coming to me. You'd better keep your distance, too. Been happening to you."

Coated in Legion blood, in the aftermath of an unsuccessful raid, and having been branded by their _frumentarii_ , she began laughing a high-pitched titter of disbelief.

"You are the only person in this fucked-up world I can trust to blame himself for my own utter stupidity!" She held her side in pain, laughing. When she finally quelled her laughter, she held out her hand to him. He took it, and she stood up. "No more, Craig. You don't get to blame yourself for bad shit that happens. It would have happened to me, just like it happened to you, whether or not we crossed paths."

He was still holding her hand, looking like he was lost in thought, and she pulled it away. She pocketed the brass knuckles and strode off to locate her pistol. She retrieved more ammo and guns, then bashed in a few heads, for good measure. When she returned to the camp, he was where she'd left him.

His arm was still bleeding, so she found some bandages and came back. Pouring a little water over his arm, and wiping it clean, she saw the cut wasn't nearly as deep as it looked. She wrapped it, then secured it and released him. "Let's get the hell out of here, huh?" she asked.

He stalked off, not saying a word. "Okay," she said. "Not sure what you're doing, but I'll be over here," she called.

She used the rest of the water to clean her face of blood, dabbing at it gently. Her eye was blackening, she was sure, but her nose didn't appear to be broken. It was swollen and in pain, though. She noticed a few tears in her armor, too, and swore. _Goddammit, this is why I can't have nice things._ She wished she were back at the Lucky 38. Her old bullet wound began to throb.

 _And that is a whole other can of beans I still have to tackle._ Walking into that camp would be impossible with Boone around, and she didn't know that she wanted to go. But the platinum chip...

Filled with anger, she punched the nearest wall, and then pulled her hand away, swearing up and down. _Ohhh, that was such a bad idea!_

"Save it for the Legion," Boone said, walking up behind her.

"So I'm allowed to be around you, now?" she snapped at him.

"That... wasn't what I meant to say," he replied, embarrassed. "I'm the one following _you_ , anyway."

"Well, with that piece of inanity out of the way, I'm off to see Markland and maybe get some free doctoring." She shook her hand. "I hope I didn't break anything." She started to walk away, but he stopped her.

"Listen, Bonnie," he said, "I'm not the best at talking―"

She shot him an agonized look. "You can make your admission, later, can't you? Seriously, my hand." She waved it at him, her knuckles turning purple.

He grabbed her wrist and pulled her to him, wrapped his other arm around her back, and kissed her.

She was mildly surprised. _If I wasn't so beat up, bloodied and otherwise disinclined..._ He held her _very_ tightly. She started thinking about Motor-Runner, and tears sprang to her eyes again.

"Boone, let me go," she pushed him away and broke the embrace. She walked off to the medical tent, wiping her face. She felt ashamed, she'd destroyed such a nice thing because she couldn't push back the memories of her attack.

She practically fell into the medical tent, and Dr. Markland gave her some very scathing looks when it came to her hand. "I expect this sort of shenanigans from troopers," he said. "From what I hear, you don't need any more help getting hurt."

She tried to laugh but it didn't work, all she could feel were hands around her neck and a pressure that she couldn't shake off. She passed out in the chair, from the adrenaline rush, the exhaustion of fighting hand to hand, from everything that she had been trying to keep in while out in the wasteland.

* * *

When she woke, she still held onto some of the terror, but her nose and eye felt better, and she sat up groggily. Boone was waiting by the bed, and she grimaced.

Markland checked her eyes and flicked her in the nose, then declared her, "Fit to go, get out."

As she and Boone walked back down to the road and away from Bitter Springs, he moved closer to her and said, "I'm keeping count."

She was pulled roughly from her own internal ass-kicking. "Of what," she asked.

"The crying."

She huffed. "It's not really something I'm _trying_ to draw attention to," she snapped.

"Good," he said, walking down past her and into the lead. "I like you better when you're angry."

She stopped, and then took quick steps to catch up. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Whatever you think it does," he answered, calmly.

She didn't know what to think. _The wasteland is challenging enough without having to play games,_ she thought. Not that she hadn't played games; it was a staple of her repertoire to talk her way out of situations. _Especially since I can't shoot my way out, like_ he _can._

"Are we alright, here?" she asked, after half an hour of traveling.

He made a noise, and she realized he'd laughed. "It's like you said," he turned to face her. "We're a hell of a pair, Bonnie."

A corner of her mouth twitched. "Won't win at poker, maybe."

"But we will bankrupt the house," he added.

She let loose a laugh, then grabbed her ribs again. "Dammit." She let out a sigh. All the tension was gone, she felt. "So, let's go over to Camp Golf and say hello," she said.

"I was there before," he mentioned.

"Camp Golf?" she asked, stepping around a prickly pear.

"First R econ was stationed there."

"What was that like?"

He pulled his rifle and shot at a mole rat snuffling in the distance. "It was on the front line for a while. Only resort in New Vegas no one wanted to get sent to."

"Yeah," she said, gazing up across the water to the heavily fortified hill above the Dam. "I can see that." She stopped at the sandbags around Camp Golf and adjusted her haversack. "Do you ever think about what it would be like, if you'd stayed in the military after Bitter Springs?"

"I'd be dead," he said bluntly, hopping the barrier.

She looked out over the water again. The sun was rising just over the horizon, and everything had a strange quality to it in the morning light. She hopped over the sandbags and walked with him into Camp Golf. She scouted for someone to sell her something, but no one could help her.

"Well, I think I made a friend with that guy," she said, pointing up at the troopers outside the firing range. "But other than that, this part of the trip was somewhat useless."

They went west toward the highway. She started down an incline, stumbled, landed on her ass. "Not having a good day so far," she muttered.

"How long have you been a courier?" Boone asked, offhand.

"Too long," she said. Then, after a moment of thinking, "About ten years, I think. I'm not really into the whole New Vegas scene. Most of my jobs were around the mountains as a mail courier."

"Will you go back to that?"

She stopped walking. "Probably not." She turned to face the highway, and her mouth thinned into a deep frown. "If I don't get that chip back, I'm not going to have the option."

She walked toward the highway. He kept pace. The Mojave had left an indelible mark on her, and she didn't think it was only the branded bull. The whole area was a paradise of pain and suffering, pushing her to her limits, making her something more than just a nobody from Northstar.

She might go back there, one day. But not until she was certain how things would play out here.

She headed south on the highway toward Boulder City. She stopped to buy ammo at 188, then followed the road to the ruins, admiring the wholesale destruction of the town. A soldier was perusing the monument at the center of the town, she stepped past him to find someone in charge.

Near a wooden barricade, she was stopped by an officer. "Lieutenant Monroe," he identified himself. "Best to keep walking, ma'am. Nothing left here except a few troopers and some rubble."

"No problem," she said. "What's going on in there, though?"

"Some Great Khans holed up in here," he said, cautiously. "Nothing we can't handle."

She thought it over for a moment. "I'm actually looking for a group of Great Khans," she mentioned. "In connection with a man who shot me in the head." She pushed her hair behind her ear.

He eyed her warily. "And you are?" he asked.

"Name's McCrae."

Monroe's expression softened. "I've heard that name around."

"Wouldn't be a surprise," she muttered. _For the love of_ _―_ _did Colonel Hsu spread that around like a gossipy housewife?_ "Look, is there any way I can talk to these guys?"

He shook his head. "There's Khans in the ruins, yes, but they're holding NCR troopers hostage. So far, we haven't had much luck getting anywhere with them. Command ordered us to eliminate them, but we can't draw them out into the open."

"And if you go in, they'll kill the hostages?" He nodded. She shot a look at the gate. "Why not let me go in? I can talk to them as a neutral person, an outsider. If they are the Khans I'm looking for, they'll be thrown off guard. Then I can negotiate."

He mulled it over. "I suppose," he said. "I want those troopers out alive."

She agreed. She and Boone passed through the gate. Inside, NCR troopers were in position around a small house in the wreckage.

Bonnie turned to Boone. "I want you to stay here," she said.

"Why?" he asked.

"Because Khans dislike First Recon more than any other NCR."

He conceded. "I'll sit tight."

She entered the small house, shutting the door quietly behind her. Two Khans were standing directly behind the counter ahead of her. One jumped in surprise at seeing her. "You're supposed to be dead!" he said.

"Apparently, I ain't," she said, wryly.

" _Fuck,_ " he said, his eyes as wide as a brahmin's backside.

"What's going on here," she said, "is that I am going to help you, in exchange for some information."

"How can you help? There's a trap out there, waiting to swallow us whole."

She smiled. "You underestimate me," she said. He said nothing. "If you agree to release the hostages, I will speak to Monroe and get you peacefully away from here."

He talked it over with the other Khan, then turned to her. "Alright."

"I also want to know why you were helping Benny get that chip from me."

"That," he snarled. "Fuck him, man. He left us here. Said he was gonna take over Vegas with that thing, then fucking abandoned us to the NCR. I knew the money was too good."

She had thought as much. The Khans were notably tough, but weren't complicated. "You do agree to let the troopers go?" she asked.

"If you get us out," he said, "you can have them."

She left and went back up to Monroe. "They want safe passage from the ruins, but they have agreed to let the hostages go."

"And you trust them?" he asked. "I have to take them out. Orders are very specific." He gave her a dubious look.

"If you want to maintain this negative reputation that the NCR has with the Khans, by all means, go ahead. Especially after what happened at Bitter Springs," she said. "Otherwise, I suggest you uphold a moral stance and let them walk away. Giving those Khans a reason to doubt the NCR is out for their blood is only the beginning of thawing that political iceberg."

He let out a long sigh. "Very well," he said. "It's a deal."

Bonnie went back into the house and personally escorted both the NCR and the Khans away from it. Boone joined back up with her after they were out of the gate.

"Went well?" he asked.

"Peaceful as could be," she said. "Now I need to go back to the Lucky 38 and speak with House. Benny really was trying to take over Vegas."

"Back to the Strip, then."

"Unless you want to storm the fort now," she snorted. "And I somehow doubt we will come out of that one alive."

His face set grimly. "All I need is my rifle."

"Yeah, I know," she said. "But you said before, I need practice, and a better weapon. So, we go to Vegas, then I get some lessons."

She looked at New Vegas. From this distance, you could barely see it, but it was still there, looming in the sky. The Lucky 38, bigger than life, and inside it, the creator of New Vegas, waiting for the final piece of his puzzle. She didn't know if she could unlock it.

But she might try.


	9. Target Practice

Back at the Lucky 38, Bonnie went to talk to House. Benny had indeed been a protege of his, and had aspired to take control of Vegas. "Kind of like his second in command," she told Boone, later. "And he decided that New Vegas would be better with House gone."

"So how did he find out about the chip?"

"I'm not sure. House wouldn't have given that information out, you would think." She gathered up some things and stuffed them into her haversack. "I need to fix my armor again," she announced. "I'm going to count up the caps and see where we stand."

He went off into the suite, and she heard water running. She poured her money out onto the table in the kitchen and began counting. When Boone returned, he had changed clothing. He was wearing some kind of NCR outfit with a bandoleer and First Recon patches on the arms.

"I like that," she said, offhand. "What made you decide to change?"

"Seems the right time for it," he said. He sat down beside her, flicking a piece of scrap metal away. She was aware of a pleasant warmth coming from him.

"I have about eight hundred," she said, "counting this NCR money, but it doesn't go nearly as far as caps do. I'll get my armor fixed first, then I'll look for another weapon."

"You did okay with the cowboy repeater, back there," he said.

She made a face. "My mom was a teacher. I know more about science and the mechanics of guns than how to shoot them," she said. "I don't think she wanted me to ever learn."

"You'll learn."

She scratched her head, and pulled away some flecks of blood. "I'm going to take a bath. Give me a shout if you think of anything."

When she came back, freshly cleaned of as much blood as she could get out from under her fingernails, she sat down again and opened her Pip-Boy menu to the map. "So, where's a good place to go shooting?" she asked the room in general.

Boone reached over and pulled her arm in front of him, then asked her how to zoom in. She showed him, and he brought up a spot north of Vegas, to the west. "Lots of bighorners up that way," he said.

"Okay." She felt tired, all of a sudden. "Let's stay here, tonight. We'll head out tomorrow morning."

She retired to the master bedroom, and sat on the floor near her gun case. She pulled the repeater from the haversack, and examined it. It needed a lot of work to get it back up to speed. She put away her tiny pistol, then pulled out some weird energy pistol she'd picked up. She was staring at it, trying to remember where she'd picked it up, when Boone knocked on the door.

"Thank you for taking me to Bitter Springs," he said. "Things seem... clearer now."

"No problem," she said, distracted. _Where did I pick that gun up from?_

"You didn't have to help. It means a lot to have someone looking out for you."

She looked up at him, exasperated. "You told me, you don't have anyone else. I don't, either."

He nodded. "I guess we're better company for each other than our own selves."

"I hope that is true," she said, and put the guns away, closing the case. "It's reassuring to have someone watching your back." He stood there, not moving. Speeding things up, she asked, "Was there something else?"

He looked conflicted. "Not sure how to say it."

She stood, smiling to herself. _I got warning this time,_ she thought. She watched him carefully, wondering yet again what was going through that rock tumbler of a mind.

"I don't want you to think I'm being pushy," he said, after a time.

"Why would I think that," she said. "You haven't asked for anything, at all."

He moved closer to her, and leaned so his mouth was near her ear. "Because I want to hold you," he said.

She blinked. _I told you so,_ that little voice came from the back of her head. She kicked it away. "You want a... hug?" she asked, confused. _Goddammit. I missed that completely. Why are things so complicated, sometimes?_

"I've been lonely a long time," he said. "I don't... want to hurt anybody."

"I trust you won't," she said, gently, and leaned into him. "I don't think a hug would hurt either one of us."

He put his arms around her, and she felt good for the first time in a long time. It was a hard, desperate hug for her, rough around the edges but entirely satisfying. _Good God, he's so warm,_ she thought.

"Your arm isn't infected, is it?" she asked, thinking about that. She ran a hand down to the bandage. The area wasn't any more hot than the rest of him.

He shuddered. "I didn't mean to―" she pulled away a bit, but he crushed her back to him. "Oof!"

It seemed like it lasted forever. She wasn't uncomfortable, but she wasn't doing the hugging herself, so she was basically trapped. Yet it wasn't the same as at Bitter Springs, or any other time she'd been pinned. She could get out of this one anytime she wanted.

 _Stupid Bonnie._

She punched her brain back into submission. _Think straight. If you get involved, there's all kinds of horrible things that can happen. You have to go into that fort to get that chip. He'll die._

She sucked in a sharp breath, and pushed him back a little. "Are you okay, Craig?" she asked.

He didn't saying anything for a moment. "Don't know," he said.

She touched his shoulder. "I think you should go to sleep," she said. "In the morning, we'll go up to the mountain and you can teach me how to shoot."

He looked defeated, and slunk away to the other bedroom. She sat on the bed and cracked her neck.

 _This is... interesting,_ she thought. _Not that I noticed, but now there is a whole new layer of him to unpeel. Wait and see, I guess._

She curled up under the sheets and sang a song inside her head, willing herself to sleep.

* * *

The next afternoon, Bonnie was developing an active hate for all things cazador. She didn't know how people managed to thrive in the desert, with these monsters flapping and chattering about the sands. _I want to take dynamite and stick it into every nest I can find,_ she grumbled to herself.

"Are we clear?" she shouted to Boone. They were hotfooting it down the highway to the west, trying to outrun two of the fucking things.

He started running backwards, shooting at them. She swore. _Alright, then,_ she thought, _let's do this._

She pulled out her repeater and turned, bracing herself. Without aiming, she loosed seven rounds into the closest cazador. A lot of the shots didn't hit, but she did manage to cripple its wings. She reloaded and swung the repeater around to the other cazador.

It was almost on top of Boone. She fired wildly at it, trying to buy him some time to get back.

Boone backed up, grunting in pain, firing at it.

She reloaded again, and took down the crippled cazador. Boone had killed the other by the time she was done.

He stalked over to her and knocked the repeater right out of her hands. "The next time you shoot at me, you'd damn well better miss!" he yelled, angrily. He stomped off a distance down the road and surveyed the road.

She retrieved her repeater and reloaded slowly. Taking a deep breath, she exhaled slowly. _Well. I guess that was bound to happen._ She took a moment to compose herself, then joined him.

"Craig?" she asked, softly. He grunted. "I'm sorry," she said. "Are you injured?"

"Just a graze," he muttered.

"I really do need practice," she said.

"Yes," he agreed. He pointed to the south, up a hill. "That way."

They walked up the steep road, avoiding the landslides. The area was very pretty, and very green, with tall pine trees that obscured the distance. Boone lead her up onto an outcropping of rock and crouched down. She did the same.

"Aim at those bighorners over there," he gestured.

She brought the repeater up and aimed.

"When you have the time, wait for your shot."

She watched the animal grazing. It looked around, lifting it head high. She squeezed the trigger and picked her moment. The bighorner dropped.

"When you don't have that much time, you still need to stay calm and line up your shot." He stood up, grabbing a rock and tossing it at another bighorner. It snorted, reared its head back, and charged.

She aimed, but the bounding animal was confusing her, through the sight. She lost her concentration. She aimed lower, shot off a few rounds. It stopped and shook itself, then continued charging.

"Shoot!" he ordered.

She aimed and fired. It dropped.

Boone looked at her with a funny expression. "Why can't you shoot like that?"

She laid the repeater across her knees, and sat back on her heels. _Guess I should fess up._

"My dad was in the NCR," she began. "I used to ask him every day to teach me how to shoot. When he finally gave in, well..." She snorted. "I guess he didn't want me joining up. I was lead to believe I was a fair shot."

 _And when I tried to join up after Mom got married, did I ever get a surprise._ She sighed.

"He died fighting the Legion," she murmured. "Bet he's rolling in his grave."

"I'll bet," he echoed, his voice distant.

The wind picked up and blew crisply over the mountains. She listened to the sounds the tree made, felt the wind on her face. She wasn't cold, but she shivered.

They spent the afternoon wandering through the mountains, looking for targets. Under Boone's direction, she was accurate more often than not. She started feeling very hopeful for her continued survival.

They ate pinyon nuts and steak at a makeshift campfire. She unwrapped his arm bandage and left it off. It was healing well. She wondered what part of him she'd shot. He didn't have any obvious wounds. She was afraid to ask.

While they enjoyed the fresh air, the light began to go. "Camp?" she asked.

He shrugged. She looked to her Pip-Boy. "There's a big crater up at the end of this road," she said. "I heard a rumor about a settlement of Super Mutants around the area. Maybe we should check that out."

"Rather take my chances in the open. Let's not risk walking into another death trap," Boone said.

She looked at him in the fading light. He was sitting on a rock, rifle across his back, looking at the remains of the campfire. _Okay, not pushing it._

"I think I saw a mine back there," she said, looking at her map again. "We can backtrack to it."

She walked back up to the road and looked around in the dusk. She wondered why he was testy now. Steps behind her made her tense up. She adjusted her pack and fell in step with him back down the road.

She eyed the shack. "I don't know about this," she said. "Got a bad feeling."

He opened the door and left her behind. She stayed outside, feeling the cold creeping up on her. _Dammit. I really wanted to check out that rumor._ She walked into the shack and put her haversack on the table.

The night was uneventful, other than the occasional rustling of the trees and some noises she suspected were more cazadors.

When she woke, she'd been grinding her teeth, and her jaw hurt. She took a shot of whiskey and whistled her way out of the shack. They made their way down off the mountain and onto the road toward Westside. She was in a good mood, humming music to herself, no sign of any cazadors.

Boone didn't speak until they made it into Westside. "Now that you've gotten some lessons, are you planning to take on the Fort?"

She dropped the water bottle that she had been drinking, and swallowed hard. _Oh, damn. No wonder he was so irritable up there. ...I wanted to have this conversation somewhere else, and a long time from now,_ she thought.

"When I go," she said, "I think it might be best just to get in and out as quickly as possible."

"You won't go, then." He came abreast of her and walked beside her, uncomfortably close. She wished she was wearing a hood, to pull down over her eyes.

She stopped, turned to face him and held her hands out. "Now, listen, Craig―"

"It's one thing to go in there, guns blazing," he said, growing angrier. "It's a whole different thing to play up to that goddamn bastard. You try to reason with them, they don't like it, you'll end up halfway across Arizona before anyone knows what the hell happened."

"I'm not afraid of them," she said. "I'm not afraid of anything, anymore. And I'm _very_ good at dying." She fought her temper. "I don't want you to go, because I want to do it easy. Is that so hard to understand?"

Boone stood as still as a rock, his face hardened. She turned away, feeling sadness and anger at the same time. She watched two people playing chess, for a moment.

She spoke only when she knew her tongue wouldn't betray her. "I don't want to die," she said, "and I certainly don't want you to, either. I have to complete that delivery, though. Much as you hate the Legion, I'm not making myself an outlaw."

"It's a lot simpler if we just kill them all."

"Of _course_ that's simpler," she said, frustrated. She threw her hands up and shook them. "You're going into that idea assuming that we'll either die, or come out in a blaze of glory." She started walking towards New Vegas again.

"I came with you, mostly because you promised we could kill Legionaries," he growled.

"Mostly? That was the only reason, Boone, and you know it. I needed an extra gun, you wanted to shoot shit. It worked out." She crossed her arms and bit her cheek.

He didn't answer. She kept walking. "And you know what," she added, turning and waving a finger at him, "I think we are too much alike to get along very well." She stumbled on a rock and fell on one knee, picked herself up. _Calm down._

"Calm down," he echoed. She rolled her eyes.

"Look, it's my business. Your business is what you do, but if I ask you to stay behind, you should at least respect that," she huffed, and then sprinted off toward Vegas, not looking to see if he followed her.

 _Quit being a selfish prick, Bonnie McCrae._


	10. The Worst Mistake

Note: Sad Boone sex, you are warned.

* * *

Back at the Lucky 38, she emptied her gun case with shaking hands, doing another inventory, hoping that it would be different. She put the cowboy repeater and the tiny pistol to the side, and as an aside, placed the brass knuckles with them. She'd looked over a combat knife, pretended to stab an enemy, but decided against it.

Everything else, she put away, then moved onto her armor. Briefly, she tried on a set of combat armor she'd gotten from Gun Runners. Then she remembered why she didn't wear it, and changed out. _Damn, that's uncomfortable._

She was pulling on her leather pants when Boone came up to the suite. She quickly pulled on a shirt and tried to close the door on him. He leaned against the door and it wobbled open, hitting the opposite wall. His sunglasses tumbled to the floor.

He was sloshed. She could smell the whiskey coming off him. "What the hell," she cried out. He moved from the door to the bed in a lunge, and landed on it with a thump that rattled the frame.

She pulled the door back and made sure there wasn't any damage, then turned to him and put her hands on her hips. He sat there, staring at a bottle of whiskey in his hand.

She pursed her lips and waited, frowning.

He laughed, bobbing his head in that unconnected way that drunks did, then mumbled something she didn't catch. Something about living to death.

When he brought the bottle up for another drink, she snatched it out of his hands. His reaction was delayed, but still powerful―they entered a tug of war, and she wasn't strong enough to keep him from yanking the bottle and her arm toward him, knocking her knee into the bedpost. She hissed in pain.

"Stop it," she said. "You don't need any more." _Either he can't hold his liquor, or he's three bottles in already,_ she thought.

He snorted, pulled it from her grasp and drank the remainder. Tossing the bottle away, he laughed absently. "You," he said, wagging a finger at her, "you are the most irritating person I have ever met." He trailed off, his finger dropping.

"I get that sometimes," she said.

He shook his whole hand at her, like he was about to say something. After a few shakes and a hiccup that turned into a laugh, he said, "I don't get it."

"What, Craig," she prompted.

"You helped me out, right," he slurred. "Got that... bitch who took away my life." He looked like he was going to throw up. "I helped you. Saved you at that Vault, the shack." He shook his head. "Didn't _have_ to. _Wanted_ to."

"You aren't making sense," she said, crossing her arms. "Maybe you ought to―"

"No, no, no, no," he interrupted. "Listen."

"Okay," she sighed.

"Couldn't get out. Pissed me off. Busted the door, found you gone. Blood on the ground." He coughed. "Tracked you down."

A sharp, sick feeling rose in her throat. She pushed it back, willing herself to hear him out.

"Saw those guys in NCR uniform. Wasn't right. Heard them talking." He mimed his rifle, looking through the scope. She wondered where his rifle was, she didn't see it on him. "Made me mad, shot their legs out." He laughed maliciously. "Happy deathclaws."

 _He told you that much,_ she thought. _He must have watched them getting mauled by deathclaws, while you were laid out on that table, dead._ She swallowed bile.

"Then..." he stopped and his forehead wrinkled. "Then I found you."

"I wasn't in pain," she reminded herself. "I was somewhere else." _Shit, did I say that out loud?_ She winced.

He ignored her. "I knew it was Legion. Seen the marks before. Saw the brand."

 _Stupid of me to think that he hadn't seen it, when he carried me to Usanagi's clinic._ Unconsciously, she moved a hand down to her stomach.

He made a strangled noise. "I saw that, and I was glad you were dead."

 _You and me both,_ she thought. Tears pricked her eyes. "Craig―"

"Not done!" he said, holding up a hand. "I was going to take you back to House. Made it to the road when you started breathing again."

She didn't remember anything except the "snow" and throwing up.

"I don't get it," he repeated. "I've been waiting for all my bad to come back on me. All the dues I owe. And you helped me, all my dues are paid by you."

She was confused. "...You mean, you think I'm paying for all the bad shit you've ever done?"

He slumped forward a little. She thought at first that he'd passed out― _on_ my _bed goddammit_ ―and touched his arm to see if he was still with her. _He's as hot as fire_.

Then she was on the bed; he'd pulled her over his shoulder and turned himself around. He was standing over her now. "Man, you are starting to get on my nerves," she said, pushing herself up.

She was leaning on her elbows when he moved forward and placed his hands over hers, almost headbutting her with how close he was getting. "Bonnie," he whispered.

Her heartbeat exploded into a million beats at once. "Craig, please d―don't hold me down," she pleaded.

He moved his lips to her throat, working over the still-healing scar of the bite wound. She shuddered, and collapsed onto the bed. "Stop!"

He loomed over her, then moved his mouth down her collarbone and back up to her chin. And he was kissing her, not the rough kiss at Bitter Springs, but a soft and gentle reminder that she needed him. She felt a powerful stirring in her stomach.

"Mmmpphhh!" she said, and her chin started to wobble. Tears sprang to the corners of her eyes, and she closed them tightly. _Be strong._

Working a leg up in between them, she put her knee on his chest and pushed him back, as hard as she could. He broke the kiss and looked down in confusion. She pulled her hands out from under his and wiggled out from under him, moving across the bed.

"No, Boone," she said.

He looked her straight in the eyes. Something in her expression must have clued him in. He straightened up and ran a hand over his face. She stood, looking down, fiddling with her hands, her face flushed.

He came to the other side of the bed, and pushed her hand back over her ear, running a thumb along the bullet wound scar.

The need was strong―Oh! she was tempted. The old Bonnie would have taken what she wanted. But the old Bonnie wouldn't have asked him to come along with her; she wouldn't be anywhere near him if she was in New Vegas. She wasn't ashamed of the past; maybe she could make the present enjoyable, too.

Her heartbeat filled her ears, thumping like fast music. She took a deep breath and plunged forward, cinching her arms around his back. He circled her with his arms, brushing his lips against her ear. Hot breath went down her back and she shivered. _Feels like a thunderstorm_ , she thought.

Her mouth sought his, pulling him to her. Her fingertips tingled as she ran them down his back.

He picked her up, then, and laid her on the bed, pulling up her shirt. Her nipples were cold, then hot, as he place his mouth on them. She moaned.

He slipped off the bandoleer and the vest, losing his shirt in the process. A soft layer of red hair met her hands as she ran them down his chest. She pulled her shirt off, snapping the Pip-Boy off and tossing it to the floor. He pressed his lips on her breastbone.

Boots were shaken to the floor, then pants. He was still wearing his beret. A heady laugh began in her throat before she could stop it.

He looked up. "What?" he asked.

"Your beret!" she laughed.

He grinned, then nuzzled her neck, whispering in her ear. "I don't ever take it off."

She dissolved into laughter, and he kissed her full on the mouth, stopping her. A jolt of electricity went all the way to her toes.

Her fingers explored what she could reach, coming to a rest on his ass, where she felt a wound. "Oh my God," she said.

"It doesn't hurt anymore," he said, breathy.

"I shot you in the ass," she said, unbelieving.

"Quiet," he said, kissing her neck and running a hand down to her hip. He hooked two fingers into her underwear. She hesitated. _Dammit, Bonnie, you got this started, you damn well better finish it._

Then they were both naked and he was rubbing himself on her leg, crouched over her.

"Just―" she swallowed hard. "Go easy, okay?" she said.

He whispered in her ear, "I won't hurt you, I promise."

She let out a small moan, and gave him way. He shifted his weight and she gasped. "Oh," she whimpered.

At first she felt it was too much, too soon, but he went slowly, and it was good. But she could see the effort in his face, the strain of holding back. He groaned, and shuddered to a stop.

"It's okay," she said, running a hand down his shoulder.

"Been too long." He leaned forward.

"Don't worry," she said. "Go on."

"Not very fair," he said, breathing fast.

"You'll make it up," she said. "I'm sure." She smiled at him.

The bubble in her chest kept expanding, and he moved faster, rougher. She bit his lip gently when he came in for a kiss, and held him there, moving with him.

He pitched forward, and shuddered again, pushing into her harder than before. She could feel him fluttering inside her, and his face was flushed pink, and he stopped. Then, slowly, he pulled himself off of her, and collapsed onto the bed beside her.

She sat up, staring down at him. "You okay?" she asked.

"Might have killed me," he muffled into the pillow.

She laughed, and threw the corner of the bedspread over him. "Get some sleep."

"Thank you," he said, quietly, then went still.

She retrieved her shirt, went to the kitchen and got a drink, then gathered her things and left him there, sleeping off a whiskey hangover.


	11. House Always Wins

Note: Bonnie's a cad. What a bitch. Enjoy the end here...

* * *

"Victor," Bonnie said, pulling on a boot. "Can you lock up the Lucky 38 for me?"

"Sure can, pardner!" he replied, wheeling to the elevator at the casino floor. "Are ya'll planning a long trip?"

"Uhhh," she pulled her hair out of her collar. "I am leaving for a few days. I want you to lock Boone in the suite. There's food and water up there."

Victor was silent. "Victor?"

The regular securitron voice came over his cowboy accent. "In the event of aggressive action against securitrons, lethal force is authorized."

She paused, mulling it over. "So, if he attacks you, you can and will shoot?"

"Yep." Victor's voice came back.

She nodded. "Okay, give me a minute." She left his rifle laying on the floor of the elevator, where he'd left it when he stumbled back to the suite. For a moment, she felt a pang of regret, but pushed through it. She gathered up some odds and ends, then shouldered her haversack and met Victor at the elevator doors.

"Can you record a message for me?" she asked him. "Play it for Boone when he tries to leave."

"Ready when you are, pardner."

She took a deep breath, exhaled, and began. "Craig, I have to go. I don't want to leave you, but this is _my_ job. It's not fair to you if I drag you along, and we'll only get into trouble. When I come back, we'll kill all the Legionaries you want, I promise." She paused and sighed. "I care about you, you know? I know you care about me. But I'm doing this for the good of both of us. I am going to the Fort. If you are inclined to follow me, please don't. I'll meet you at the dinosaur in Novac when Victor opens the door in two days. Don't fight the securitrons; they are allowed to use deadly force." She paused. "I... I'm sorry."

 _I hope he doesn't get his ass killed._ She left Victor with instructions to reopen the door for him to leave after two days. Then, moving fast and with a purpose, she sped over the road toward Novac.

* * *

By the time she reached 188, the sun was rising above the horizon. She didn't have time to stop, and kept on until she could see the dinosaur. She went right up to Dinky's mouth and sought out Manny Vargas. "Boone might be coming through here in a few days. Can you try to keep him here?"

"What did you do?" Manny gave her a look of reproach.

"Nothing!" she said, flustered. "I'm heading south and I don't want him catching up with me. I'll be back in a day or two, I just want him to be here when I get back."

He shrugged, then, and said he would do his best. She continued on to the Cove, sneaking around Searchlight and the feral ghouls roaming the area. She plodded down the road toward the river until a Legionary ran to meet her.

"Halt, traveler!" he called. She held the Mark of Caesar up. "You must be the one that Cursor Lucullus is waiting for," he said, and directed her to the river. As he walked away, she removed the bit of armor around her stomach, displaying the branded bull.

 _Let's do this._

She rode up to the Fort, a boring trip of a few hours. At the hill, she strode into the camp, ignoring all the Legionaries, and went right to Caesar's tent.

"So I finally get to meet the courier who's accomplished so much in so little time. That is why I summoned you here, right?" He moved in his throne. "I mean, a man nearly kills you, and your response is to track him across the breadth of the Mojave?"

"What do you want?" she asked, carefully neutral.

He sized her up. "The question is... are you ready to get started?"

"I'm not sure what you mean," she said.

"Down the hill, at the west edge of camp, is an old building. It was here when the Fort was taken in 2277. Inside the building is a hatch, and inside that hatch are two steel doors that bear the sigil of the Lucky 38 casino." He smiled, and she could almost see the gears in his head turning. "Now that same sigil is on the Platinum Chip Benny was carrying when we captured him. Isn't that interesting?"

"Yes," she said, and it really was.

"Even more interesting, there's a slot about the same size as the Chip on the console that opens the hatch. So you know what I think? I think the Platinum Chip opens those doors―doors that can't be pried open or drilled open or blasted open. Because all that, I tried."

"What do you want me to do?" she asked, keeping the exasperation out of her voice.

"I want you to destroy that bunker and everything in it." He twirled a hand in the air. "Until then, we have nothing to talk about."

On her way out, she saw Benny, tied up and on his knees. She ignored him, for now. The guard at the weather station gave her back the chip, and she went to check out the bunker.

When she walked through the doors, a monitor with House's face on it came into her sight. He explained to her the reason for the bunker. A veritable army of securitrons, all waiting to be upgraded with the information on the chip. She nodded to herself. It was worth the caps and time he'd put into retrieving it.

She turned off the security in the bunker, walked to the very end of the corridors, and placed the chip into the slot. A loud thumping began in the floor. Machinery powered up, and she felt a chill in the air. Something big was going to happen, very soon.

Bonnie returned to the monitor and received accolades from House for her steadfast dedication to her job, the future, and the benefit of all mankind. _Jeez,_ she thought. _Could he lay it on any thicker?_

When she left, she went back and confronted Caesar. She didn't tell him that she'd upgraded the securitrons, he assumed she had done what he asked. He asked her to decide the fate of Benny, now that the job was done.

If she left him, and didn't decide, they would put him up on a cross. She was tired of everything, sick to her stomach of the terrible decisions she was making. She approached Benny with a half-smile, half-resigned look on her face.

"If you deserve death," she said, slowly, "and I can't say whether you do, then at least it will be quick."

He nodded, a rueful smile spreading across his face. "I shoulda known that the minute you came back from the grave."

"Close your eyes, if you want."

"Nah, I'd rather see it coming," He looked very tired. "Do it, baby. Make it clean."

 _I can respect that,_ she thought. She raised the repeater to aim. He stared, unrepentant. She exhaled, and pulled the trigger.

She pulled out the chip, looked it over, and put it away. "I hope it was worth it," she said to his corpse. "I don't think it was."

She bought a hood from the trader near the gate to the Fort, and pulled it over her head, hiding the tears that fell as she left.

* * *

The entire journey from the Lucky 38 to the Fort, and back to the dinosaur, took less than two days. She felt accomplished, if exhausted, and wasn't sure if she was ready for the fallout that would come from locking Boone into the tower.

 _Roll with it,_ she told herself.

She went into the motel and found Boone hadn't arrived yet, checked her Pip-Boy and realized he was probably on his way. She went up to her old motel room and unlocked it, throwing her haversack onto the couch.

It felt like the first time she'd come to Novac. She fell onto the bed, passing out from exhaustion. She didn't dream. There was nothing to dream about.

The peace of the afternoon didn't last. The door to the room slammed open, and she went for her pistol out of a dead sleep.

"What the _FUCK_ ," he raged, aiming down the sights of his rifle at her heart. She dropped the gun, held her hands up. The sheet fell away and the branded bull was visible on her stomach. The gun sights lowered to it.

He didn't speak. _It would serve me right if he shot me,_ she thought. _And I'd much rather be shot by someone who knows what they're doing._ The hood concealed her face, and she was glad of that. She didn't know if her emotions would betray her.

"Say _something_!" he yelled, and moved closer, still aiming the rifle at her.

"Did you get my message?" she asked, calmly.

"You―" his hands started to shake.

"I heard what you said about the Legion." She didn't move. "But there are some things that we have to do on our own."

He threw the rifle down, then, and lunged across the bed toward her. Her hood was pulled off, thrown to the floor. She wondered if he was going to hug or hit her. He went with the former, crushing her to him in a chest-bursting embrace.

"I'm okay," she muffled out. "Please let go."

He backed off, and then retrieved his rifle, throwing it onto his back. "I ought to shoot you," he said, angrily. "Fucking locked me in that _goddamn_ tower."

"I'm sorry for that," she said. "I can't say that strongly enough."

"Yeah, sure," he snarled.

"I got the chip back," she said, fishing it out of her pocket and tossing it onto the bed.

"And that's it?" he asked, angrily. "That's the reason you had to trick me?"

She pursed her lips and breathed out through her nose, trying to control her temper. "I tricked you because I didn't want you trying to get yourself killed." She pocketed the chip and ran a hand through her hair. "I also dealt with Benny, if you think that wasn't enough of a reason."

He said nothing. She didn't know what else to say. Minutes trickled by, the heat of the room became unbearable.

"Craig?" she finally asked.

"What."

"Right now, this... whatever's going on, can you forgive me?"

"I don't think so," he said, roughly. "If this is how you show you care, it's a surprising way of doing it."

"What would you have done?" she asked, quietly.

"You know what I am capable of," he said, his voice hushed with emotion.

She moved off the bed and went to him, touching the sleeve of his shirt. "I..."

He jerked away. "Don't touch me."

"Has all we've done together mean nothing?" she asked. "Bitter Springs, even?"

He shot her a glare. "For all I know, that was just a ploy. Better standing with the NCR. Maybe you set up that raid." He looked away. "You said yourself, you might be setting up a sneaky plan."

"Oh, for fuck's sake," she griped. "I was making a joke! And I was drinking."

"Some joke," he said.

"Look, I didn't want to run away from you," she said, "but you really didn't give me much choice to get my delivery done. I value my life." He didn't answer. "Let me find out what House wants, and then we can go forward from this."

"No guarantees," he said.

"What?"

"No guarantees." He turned to face her, his face hard. "I will not be with you." With that, he left the room.

 _No, no, no―_

She started to cry. _It's all my fault,_ she told herself. _I am a terrible person. Everything that has happened, happened because I earned it. ...I hope I am paying his dues,_ she thought. _I deserve it._

She laid down and cried until the tears wouldn't come anymore.

* * *

 _Now walk alone, play it to the bone, don't make it right._

She walked away from Novac, in a daze. The cowboy repeater went, tossed into the bushes on the side of the road. She took the tiny pistol, chucked it into the wasteland north of 188 Trading Post. She walked north with nothing but her brass knuckles and a haze in her eyes.

 _You had your chance, you lost your chance._

That was Vegas for you, she knew. A big fat game of chance. And the house? Hah. House always wins.

 _It's all about living in some other man's dream._

She dropped the knuckles to the pavement. Her haversack followed it, discarded on the road. She walked away from it, leaving behind the memories.

 _Nothing you could say could ever take this away, now._

She stumbled on the road, went down. She stood. The sun was high, her mouth felt dry. When had she last had water?

 _All that's become must unbecome._

She started walking again.

North. To New Vegas.


End file.
